Excerpts from the executive summary:
Women's advances in the work force and education over the last three decades demonstrate an unstoppable movement toward equality and mark a quiet revolution in
women's lives. The gender gap has closed in employment numbers and reversed in education without a corresponding social policy response. Canada needs early learning and child care services, not a social policy gap that is decades behind reality.
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Child care: A social policy gap
Despite what amounts to a social revolution in the lives of women since 1970, early learning and child care services in Canada today remain an inadequate patchwork that does not offer choice. In 2008, Canada had regulated child care spaces for:
- 20.3% of children under 5
- 18.6% of children under 12
Closing the gap: A national plan
With a workforce that is increasingly well-educated and in which more women than men are obtaining university and college educations, a national plan to ensure comprehensive access to quality, affordable early learning and child care services is essential to Canadian prosperity, a crucial support for children and parents and a common sense response to a changed society. As a choice for parents, early learning and child care services should be
as normalized in our social structure as the public school system.