Norway To Pay Parents To Stay Home

Norway, the world's second largest oil exporter, is a wealthy country -- but an expensive one in which to live. This is one of the main reasons why 70% of the Norwegian mothers with young children work outside the home in the paid workforce.

However, despite such a good economy, Norway has experienced a chronic shortage of child care space. Only about 40% of children under the age of three in Norway have a spot in a subsidized child care centre -- a spot that costs the government about $550. per child per month.

As a result of this, the Norwegian government has prepared a package, to be passed by Parliament this spring, which will pay parents $550. per month to look after their own children at home. In addition, such parents will receive other welfare benefits solely on the condition that a public day care centre not be used.

According to Valgerd Svarstad Haugland, the Minister of Families and Children, the key goal of this plan is "... a greater freedom of choice for families". The program is due to start this August with 1 to 2-year-olds and will expand to include 3-year-olds next year. It will cost the Norwegian government between $476 million and $550 million a year.

This plan has predictably raised the ire of Norwegian feminists who are afraid that women will be the parent to stay home and they are worried that the plan will be a move to more traditional roles for women.

Their concerns mirror the worries of French feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, who stated in her book, The Second Sex, that women should not be given a choice to remain at home, because too many women will make that choice. Certainly, Canadian women would make such a choice. A Decima Poll, in July 1991, found that 70% of Canadian women would prefer to remain at home if they were financially able to do so.

Women are quite capable of making rational decisions about what's best for themselves and their families. They don't need or want to be dictated to by totalitarian feminists who persist in telling women what's good for them. Isn't it time for the Canadian governments -- both federal and provincial -- to begin working on a real child benefits plan, along the lines of the Norwegian plan, to give Canadian parents genuine "freedom of choice" in child care?

This seems unlikely, however, as the present Liberal government in Ottawa remains obstinately blind to the wishes of Canadian women.

Finance Minister, Paul Martin, Out of Touch

Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, was badly out of touch in his most recent budget when he increased child care deductions by $2,000 for each child under age 7 and $1,000 for each child age 7 to 16, for families paying a nanny, babysitter or other child care provider. In real money, this means that child care deductions are now $7,000 (up from $5,000) for children under age 7 and $4,000 (up from $3,000) for older children. Nothing, however, was provided for a parent who remains at home to look after his/her own children. This is clear discrimination on the part of the Liberal government, which continues to deny Canadian families real freedom of choice in regard to the manner in which they raise their children. The state, at the very least, should remain neutral regarding women's career choices -- but, instead, it is favouring one choice over another, by way of its tax legislation.

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Demand that the government review the Norwegian model and implement a similar program in Canada.

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