Mon, Aug 21, 2017 page3

• Ministry announces plan to reduce daycare costs

  DAYCARE OR SITTER? The focus on infrastructure does not meet parents’ needs, as the vast majority prefer to care for their children at home, a critic said

  • By Wu Liang-yi, Tan Wei-cheng and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer
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  The Social and Family Affairs Administration unveiled plans to reduce parents’ daycare costs and expand its subsidy program over the next eight years, following calls from Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中).

  Only 40,000 of the nation’s 400,000 children under two years old have access to daycare-related subsidies, the ministry said.

  Within the next eight years, the ministry plans to extend coverage to 24 percent of the nation’s households in need of daycare services, while keeping the expenses that families pay to less than 20 percent of the average household disposable income, the ministry said.

  In Taipei, a family on average spends NT$16,000 (US$527) per month on daycare, or about 20 percent of overall household income, according to a study by an outside group commissioned by the ministry.

  This is typical across the nation’s counties and special municipalities regardless of regional income levels and cost of services, the study said, adding that in some places, daycare costs more than 30 percent of the average household income.

  According to government policy, a household with a child attending a licensed daycare establishment is entitled to NT$3,000 in subsidies in addition to other subsidies from county or special municipality governments, it said.

  For example, the Taipei City Government offers a subsidy of NT$2,500 per month for the daycare costs of a family’s firstborn and NT$3,000 for the second child, the study said, adding that it is reportedly planning to double the subsidy for the second child.

  Subsidy payouts and price controls stipulated by the plan are to take into account regional differences in daycare fees, Social and Family Affairs Deputy Director-General Chu Chien-fang (祝健芳) said.

  Under the plan, increased subsidies would reduce daycare costs for double-income households in Taipei by as much as NT$12,000.

  The ministry has been allotted NT$2 billion from the government’s Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, with which it is to build 120 public community daycare centers over the next four years, Chu said.

  However, the 1,440 slots that would be created are not adequate to meet the nation’s needs, critics said.

  Child Welfare Foundation director of research Harold Li (李宏文) said the infrastructure plan’s emphasis on community daycare centers does not meet the need of parents, who favor raising their children at home by an overwhelming majority.

  According to the foundation’s research, 45 percent of the nation’s young children are tended to by one of their parents, while 26 percent are taken care of by their grandparents, Li said.

  “For parents with young children, their biggest problems are their lack of economic resources, quality daycare options and the absence of government policy that provides a source of competent babysitters. What parents need are professional babysitters at an affordable price,” he said.
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