A note from CRRU: You may have noticed that the search function on our website has not been working well. We are replacing it with a new Google-based search, which is now live on the site ready for use. The search function will be a work in progress for at least the next few weeks, as we add tools such as search tips, explanations and additional search locations. But for the moment, it is a very usable search—useful to find resources – documents, news, and other resources – through CRRU’s key word searchable database of approximately 25,000 child care-related resources.

Highlights

National childcare system must support childcare workers
First Policy Response, 20 May 2021
In this article, author Monica Lysack discusses how current tension between the cost of child care and the low wages of child care workers is due to Canada’s market system, wherein compensating the workforce more fairly would drive up child care fees for families. Lysack argues that the new federal investment in child care must include a national ECE workforce strategy that addresses the retention crisis in child care. She recommends that the new federal child care legislation require provinces to take a three-pronged approach to an ECE workforce strategy by establishing provincial wage grids, increasing educational requirements for ECEs and establishing decent work standards that support pedagogical practices.

We must eliminate profit-making from child care and elder care
The Conversation, 25 May 2021
Child care researcher Susan Prentice and elder care researcher Pat Armstrong discuss the similarities and differences between these two care sectors in Canada, and the role of for-profit services in both. They point out that the demand is growing for both services, and long waiting lists for both services are common. For-profit care is an increasingly larger share of both markets, despite a generally lower quality of care and worse working conditions for the staff than in non-profit care.  The authors conclude that Canada needs to build high-quality, accessible non-profit child-care and elder-care facilities because additional for-profit services will only exacerbate the current crises in child care and long-term care.

Research, policy and practice

The effects of child tax benefits on the income of single mothers
Statistics Canada, 26 May 2021
This study uses Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Administrative Databank, which is a 20% nationally representative sample of T1 income tax records. The data set included detailed information about demographics, employment, income, taxes and transfers for the individuals represented, and their spouses and families. To separate the effects of the reforms from other changes in economic and labour market conditions that occurred around the same time, the study compares single mothers and single women without children using a difference-in-differences research design. The findings of this study suggest that the 2015 expansion of the UCCB and the 2016 introduction of the CCB increased income and reduced the likelihood of having low income for single mothers and their children. While not the focus of analysis, comparable effects were also observed among mothers who are married or in common-law relationships. 

Deaf childhoods and inclusive early childhood education and care
The Inclusive Early Childhood Service System Project (IECSS), 18 May 2021
The policy brief draws on the experience of participants of Ryerson’s Inclusive Early Childhood Service System Project, which focuses on disability in childhood, and includes 21 deaf or hard of hearing participants. The brief notes that none of the participants reported access to comprehensive national sign language programs, including support for parents and caregivers’ learning of ASL, LSQ or Indigenous sign language and bimodal bilingual early childhood education and care. Policy recommendations put forward in the brief include a national sign language strategy, a recognition of intersectionality and the language rights of deaf children within the national child care strategy, and greater collaboration with deaf adults, including training of deaf early childhood educators who can provide bimodal bilingual programs.

How much have childcare challenges slowed the US jobs market recovery?
Peterson Institute for International Economics, 17 May 2021
This analysis quantifies the effect of child care challenges on the American labor market by examining how much of the overall decline in employment can be explained by excess job loss among parents, and mothers specifically. The authors do this by constructing counterfactual employment rates, or employment-to-population ratios, as well as labor force participation rates that assign to parents with young children the percent change in employment and labor force participation rates experienced by comparable people without young children. The results of this exercise imply that differential job loss among parents, or even mothers specifically, accounts for a negligible share of aggregate job loss and could even have led to a small increase in jobs between the first quarters of 2020 and 2021.

The impacts of COVID-19 on early childhood education: Capturing the unique challenges associated with remote teaching and learning in K-2
Early Childhood Education Journal, 14 May 2021
In this study, K-2 teachers and parents from Ontario were interviewed for their experiences with children’s remote learning and teaching due to COVID-19. The challenges and success of remote teaching and learning have been captured across five emergent themes: equity considerations, synchronous vs. asynchronous teaching and learning, social and emotional impacts on students, academic impacts, and impacts on parents and families. In consideration of these themes, the researchers made ten recommendations for improving the practice of remote teaching and learning and for the eventual return to in-person learning.

Which meso-level characteristics of early childhood education and care centers are associated with health, health behavior, and well-being of young children? Findings of a scoping review
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 7 May 2021
This scoping review aims to provide an overview of the association between characteristics  of child care centres with children’s health, health behaviour, and wellbeing. Through database analysis of 10,396 potentially eligible manuscripts they identified 117 papers, and 3077 examinations of the association between centre-level characteristics and children’s health indicators. Five categories of characteristics were identified: (1) structural characteristics, (2) equipment/furnishings, (3) location, (4) facilities/environment, (5) culture/activities/policies/practices, and (6) staff. Characteristics of ECEC centres appeared relevant for child health indicators to different degrees, and in general, the location (rural vs. urban, neighbourhood status) seemed to be a relevant health aspect. The authors recommend that future research should focus on these associations, in detail, to identify concrete ECEC indicators that can support health promotion in early childhood.

Professionalisation of early childhood education and care practitioners: Working conditions in Ireland
Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 21 April 2021
In this article, the authors conduct a critical feminist inquiry in relation to the professionalisation of early childhood education and care practitioners in Ireland, with a focus on contradictions between the policy reform ensemble and practitioners’ reported working conditions. The findings reveal the state (re)configured as a central command centre with an over-reliance on surveillance, alongside deficits of responsibility for public interest values in relation to the working conditions of early childhood education and care workers, who are mostly part-time ‘pink-collar’ women workers in precarious roles. The study has implications that go beyond Ireland for the professionalisation of early childhood education and care workers and meeting the early developmental needs of young children.

Child care in the news

CA: Child care is an integral part of our post-pandemic recovery. Let’s go big and act now 
Toronto Star, 23 May 2021

AB: Call for measures to help childcare programs get through COVID-19 third wave
Alberta’s Future, 13 April 2021

AB: Opinion: For Alberta, $10-a-day child care is an opportunity bigger than politics
Edmonton Journal, 22 May 2021

BC: For Sharon Gregson, the long battle for better child care continues
The Tyee, 25 May 2021

BC: Sharon Gregson and Lynell Anderson: Here’s the roadmap to $10-a-day child care in B.C.
Vancouver Sun, 16 May 2021

BC: Thank you child care professionals
Delta Optimist, 25 May 2021

NWT: Childcare advocates lay groundwork for national program
NNSNL Media, 19 May 2021

US: Elizabeth Warren wants Joe Biden to go bigger on child care
Mother Jones, 20 May 2021 

US: Labor shortage forces closure of Klondike
Texarkana Gazette, 22 May 2021 

Calls to action

Anti-racism in ECE Ontario
This advocacy campaign and open letter calls on all Ontario pre-service early childhood education and care programs to include a mandatory course on anti-racism that specifically highlights anti-Black racism, taught by those with lived Black experience. In addition to the mandatory course, it also calls on colleges and universities to include anti-racism frameworks within all courses and contribute to the development of anti-racist policies within the entirety of the childcare system.