TORONTO — Ontario’s financial watchdog says $10-a-day child care has the potential to see nearly 100,000 more women enter the labour market, but only if the government creates more daycare spaces.
The Financial Accountability Office says in a new report that labour participation rates for mothers with young children rose 2.4 percentage points just from 2021 to 2022, the first year the reduced child-care fees started taking effect.
The FAO estimates that once fully rolled out, the $10-a-day child-care program in Ontario could increase labour market participation for women aged 25 to 54 from 84 per cent in 2022 to between 85.6 per cent and 87.1 per cent by 2027, adding up to 98,600 women to the workforce.
However, the report says that the 71,000 new child-care spaces promised by Ontario under the federal agreement won’t nearly be enough to meet the demand for care, and if the government doesn’t create more spaces it will offset some of the positive labour market impacts.
The report finds that labour market participation for women with young children lags significantly behind that of men with young children – a gap more than four times wider than among workers without young children.
As well, the FAO says that the gender wage gap, which sees women earn on average 87 cents for every dollar earned by men, has not improved in a decade.