The Real Child Care Crisis

This article was published in the October 1989 issue of The Freeman.

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The statistics are familiar. More than half of all women with children under the age of six have jobs outside the home; almost 40 percent of all working mothers are single, widowed, divorced, or married to men who make less than $15,000 a year; and the average cost of day care is $3,000 per child. The conclusion is also familiar: government must do something.

But the private sector already is providing a wide range of child care services. National child care chains, such as La Petite, Kinder-Care Learning Centers, and Children’s World Learning Centers, aim primarily at middle- income families. Lepercq de Neuflize, a New York investment bank, recently put $3 million into 14 preschools targeted at the upper-income market. And, across the nation, thousands of people operate for-profit child care facilities. Read more.