That’s the spin of the Globe and Mail’s news story on this morning’s Statistics Canada release of a study on women in the Canadian labour force.  A comparison of the Globe’s account and the Statistics Canada report makes the newspaper’s pro-daycare bias apparent.

After rising rapidly after World War II, the rate at which Canadian women participate in the paid labour force has grown more slowly in recent years.  The slowdown has been centred in Western Canada; but in the East, especially in Quebec, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) of women has continued to move up briskly.  This is most apparent among mothers of children aged five or less.  In Alberta, the LFPR of women with young children has actually declined since 1999, while in Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces, mothers in the same situation have increased their involvement in the paid labour force.

Statistics Canada focuses on possible reasons for that divergence.

The increase in participation rates in the East appears associated with the greater use of day care and higher education levels in Quebec, lower birth rates in the Atlantic provinces, and also with age, types of jobs created and an overall lower proportion of immigrants in the East than in the West.
. . .
If the participation rate of women with young children in Alberta and British Columbia had risen in tandem with Quebec, 30,000 more women would be in their labour forces in 2005.
. . .
In 1992, the Prairies ranked first in the participation rate of women with children less than six years of age, while Quebec was last. In 2005, Quebec came first and the Prairies last. British Columbia had the second lowest participation rate, while the Atlantic provinces had the second highest.

The Prairies have the highest birth rate in the country. In particular, Alberta women may have left the labour force to look after their children full time since it is the only province where the number of children aged 0 to 5 increased after 1999. But, while it had more infants, Alberta has the smallest share of children in day care.

Mothers in the labour force in Quebec multiplied rapidly after its $5 a day universal care system was introduced in 1997. Between 2001 and 2004, about 60% of all day care spaces added in Canada were in Quebec, which now has 43% of all children registered in day care. In 2003, the share of children in Quebec's day care almost doubled the national average.

So, how did the Globe report those facts?

If mothers of young children in Alberta and British Columbia had kept up with Quebec, there would be 30,000 women in the work force there — at a time when employers complain frequently of labour shortages.
. . .
[Francine Roy, author of the Statistics Canada study] points to availability of daycare. Alberta has the smallest share of children in daycare — 43 per cent, Statscan said. Indeed, daycare capacity has actually fallen over the past decade, and now the province has fewer than 48,000 spots for 163,400 mothers of pre-schoolers.

Meanwhile, Quebec has radically improved the availability and affordability of daycare, at the same time as more women have become more educated, Statscan said. As a result, young Québécois mothers are now participating in the workforce at rates well above the national average.

Statistics Canada says “If the participation rate of women with young children in Alberta and British Columbia had risen in tandem with Quebec”, and the Globe and Mail says “If mothers of young children in Alberta and British Columbia had kept up with Quebec”.  The Globe thinks Quebec’s higher LFPR is something that Western mothers need to “keep up with”.

Referring to mothers of young children putting their kids in daycare, Statistics Canada says Alberta has the “smallest share of children in day care” and reports the bare facts of Quebec’s daycare expansion but, according to the Globe, Statistics Canada “points to availability of daycare” and also mentions that Alberta’s “daycare capacity has indeed fallen”.  Those are important changes, I think.  The words “availability” and “capacity” emphasise the supply side of the equation and imply that, in contrast to Quebec’s universal daycare program, Alberta is providing insufficient daycare places to meet the demand.

In a free-market economy such as Canada’s, provision of daycare is a business that is cheap and easy to set up.  If the number of daycare places is declining in Alberta, my initial assumption would be that’s happening because it’s not a profitable business—i.e., there is insufficient demand to make it worthwhile to open up new daycares, or even keep open the ones that are already there.  If daycare is declining, in the absence of unreasonable barriers to entry, it must be because fewer Alberta parents want their kids cared for by strangers outside the home.

In view of these elementary economic principles, the Globe’s implication that Alberta has an “availability” or “capacity” problem in daycare is problematic and, in my view, misleading.  Contrast that with Statistics Canada’s neutral language about “use” of daycare and “share” of children in daycare.

The Globe’s statement, “Quebec has radically improved the availability and affordability of daycare”, made me cringe.  In the face of mounting evidence that putting young children in daycare has adverse effects on both them and their parents, to imply that Quebec’s universal daycare program has “improved” anything is perverse.

Statistics Canada’s summary report is posted here and the full (pdf) report here.

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