Half Changed World

In Caitlin Flanagan’s March 2004 Atlantic screed “How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement,” she suggests that upper-middle-class women are hypocritical in their calls for universal day care, because they would never use it — they all use nannies.

Flanagan’s a good writer, and she makes a persuasive case. But she’s completely wrong — in 1999, less than 5 percent of preschoolers were ever cared for in their homes by a non-relative. Even looking only at families with an employed mother, and family incomes of more than $4,500 a month, or $54,000 a year, the percentage only increases to 7.1 percent. Upper-income families are actually the most likely to use child care centers.

Flanagan concludes her article by arguing that professional-class working mothers (as usual, fathers are off the hook) should “devote themselves entirely to the real and heartrending struggle of poor women and children in this country.”

One of the great debates among advocates of public support for child care and other benefits is whether to push for programs targeted at low-income parents (who can’t afford them on their own), or if they should be universal. And, Flanagan notwithstanding, there are good arguments on both sides; there’s not an obvious right choice.

The arguments for a targeted program are:

1) It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to provide services for a few million low-income families than for the tens of millions of families who would use a universal program. In an policy climate where taxes are a dirty word, proposals for expensive new programs are unlikely to get very far.

2) It is hard to argue that middle-income families should be taxed in order to provide services to upper-income families. It’s especially hard when some groups — the childless, families with a stay-at-home parent — feel like they’re being taxed to support other people’s choices.

The arguments for a universal program are:

1) Programs that serve low-income populations are stigmatized as “welfare,” which makes people who qualify for them reluctant to take advantage of them. There are administrative costs involved in determining eligibility, and people may move in and out of eligibility over the course of a year.

2) Programs that serve low-income populations are typically underfunded and low-quality. Universal programs — such as social security — have deep popular support which fights any proposed cuts.

3) Any program that is means-tested has some sort of a cut-off above which families lose eligibility. This serves as a work-disincentive for families near the cut-off. Moreover, there is often deep resentment of means-tested programs from people who earn slightly more than the cutoff, but who are still struggling to make ends meet and who don’t qualify for any help.

4) Many advocates of universal public child care believe on principle that caring for children ought to be a societal responsibility rather than that of the individual families. They explicitly reject the notion that only those who choose to have children should bear the costs involved.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 20th, 2004 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Current Affairs, Magazines and Newspapers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.