The fact that our society, on mass scale, places very young children in childcare, has been on my mind, and so I decided to look into it.

Firstly, I spoke with Dr Gigi Foster of UNSW about her analysis of Australian childcare. She breaks down the major issues and proposes interesting solutions. Along the way we talk culture, big government, and community, and her thinking aligns with some emerging themes of the Human Ecology podcast.

Secondly, I crunched some data on childcare, which you can find here on the Substack post that accompanies this episode.

Finally, I'll release a solo follow up episode where I'll explore the issue further.

This is an issue worth thinking about closely, and I invite you all to listen to Dr Foster's analysis as an attempt to rebalance the conversation.

(0:00 ) Introduction

(2:02 ) Background to Gigi’s research paper

(3:55 ) What the research says about child care

(9:01 ) Childcare to support labour force participation

(12:29 ) Liberating labour: effects of staying home on work outcomes

(15:46 ) Quality of research, and other frameworks of assessing childcare

(19:48 ) The major issues in Australian childcare

(26:41 ) Big government mindset, institutional decay and lack of community

(29:59 ) The difficulty in judging childcare quality and Gigi’s proposal

(33:03 ) Community-based hiring of childcare staff

(35:33 ) Gossiping parents, the power of community and taking the initiative

(38:41 ) Rethinking the focus on work

(41:08 ) Demand or supply side models of childcare funding

(43:03 ) Issues with higher education and an alternative in a castle in Belgium

(52:32 ) Opportunities in Australia for parallel or alternative higher education

(58:45 ) Gigi’s new think tank, Australians for Science and Freedom

(1:03:45 ) Wrapping up and flagging the follow up episode on childcare