Listen to thisFrench 'nanny state' has the right idea, and it works
We are supposed to be family focused but we could learn a lot from childcare in France
IN the aftermath of last week's Prime Time expose on creches in Ireland, we see clearly that families are being shafted. Not only are they shafted on the quality of the childcare, but they are paying huge sums of money for the privilege.
And in the fallout, who is going to suffer? Women.
Women will be made to feel even more that they have to choose between their children and their careers, a choice that would not even arise if high quality, low cost childcare was available.
As the mother of two young children aged three and four and living in France, I've been able to compare directly the childcare systems in both countries. While I am not of the school of thought expounded by some authors that French parenting is necessarily better than the "Anglo-Saxon" style, and France has still not reached Scandinavian standards, it has a few policies in place that go far in helping women go back to work.
Minister Frances Fitzgerald could do worse than to get some inspiration from our Gallic neighbours.
In France, people believe that every child has the right to a place in a public creche. These highly-regulated municipal creches, run by staff who are highly trained in early childhood studies, frequently include a dietician and resident psychologist. At least 75 per cent of staff must be qualified. Because these public creches are highly subsidised, costs are relatively low, at least compared to Ireland.
Prices are mean-tested – as an example, for a family with a combined income of €60,000 per annum with two children in a creche, the cost to that family would be approximately €400 a month.
Naturally, places in public creches are highly-sought
after. It depends on where you live but demand often exceeds supply. If, when you apply for a place, there is none available, your other options include a private creche (these are as highly regulated as the public ones and cost slightly more), using a child minder who takes in children in her home (the person must have a state diploma, is visited regularly by inspectors and the maximum ratio is one adult to four children) or employing a nanny at home.
The last option is the most expensive but it may be the only childcare solution available if you happen to live in an area that lacks creche spaces.
The average cost of employing a nanny at home in Paris full time is approximately €1,500 a month but you can deduct a percentage of the salary that you pay the nanny from your taxes, which means that the net cost is around €800 for two children. Many families agree to share a nanny and thus reduce this.
Compared to Ireland, where the average cost of a place in a creche in Dublin is €1,000 or more, French prices for childcare are far more manageable.
Also, public nursery school or maternelle in France starts at age three and this is free. School is not obligatory for three to six year olds in France but due to the very high quality of maternelles, where teachers must all be qualified, 95 per cent of parents choose to put their children in a public nursery school.
The availability of this high-quality, affordable childcare means that 83 per cent of French women work as opposed to 64 per cent in Ireland. France and Ireland have the two highest fertility rates in the EU but the attitude of governments to childcare is wildly different.
In France, you have President Francois Hollande who attracted voters in last year's election campaign by promising more places in public creches, whereas in Ireland you have a Government minister, Leo Varadkar, who seemed to imply that women might have to choose between careers or staying at home with their children when he recently said that childcare costs could be taken into account in insolvency cases.
There is an historical element to this – in France the "politique familiale" (family policy), which helps families raise children, has been around since the 19th century, but in Ireland, our 1937 constitution enshrines the woman's role in the home.
When a woman decides to stay at home, that should be a choice based on her beliefs. But to be forced out of the workplace because children are being emotionally abused by childcare workers employ-ed by a very expensive childcare industry is wrong. Children lose because their early development is negatively affected by poor childcare and families lose because they are paying too much for a bad service. Further, women lose salary and career development equality with peers who didn't make that choice.
Ireland has always been family focused. So why are we so hard on families and particularly women already struggling to make a living?
Hopefully we can learn from this shambles and take steps to improve childcare.
Aoife Drew
2 June 2013
