Parent Time

Allowances for stay-at-home parents (and we don’t mean a hundred bucks a month)
Finland and Norway already pay modest, but significant, allowances to parents who stay home after parental leave is over. Sweden introduced a similar measure in its most recent budget. Allowances for parents who stay home would not only satisfy that minority, they might keep some ambivalent parents out of the child care market (at least for a time), thereby opening up a few child care spaces for those who want or need to work.

What’s in it for families? Money for families who choose to care for their kids at home; for the rest, a little less competition for child care spaces.

The concerns Allowances for at-home parents do not create more child care spaces. Only governments can do that. Parents who use unlicensed care (and since there aren’t enough licensed spaces, some obviously do) will still be excluded from funding benefits.

Originally published in Today's Parent, April 2008