Joanne Jacobs has a post on state-sponsored day care, nine years after the fact. Quebec, which originally began with daycare for 4 year olds, has daycare down to infants for $7/day to the parents. The economy was stronger, because of so many mothers re-entering the work force, and I would suppose because of all the daycare workers being paid.

However, in the long haul, the parents are less happy in their marriages and more stressed. And the children are learning to use the toilet and count to three later than their contemporaries did or non-Quebecians (?) do.

The universal day care gambit hasn’t worked very well there.