Thank you Emily Yoffe for such an excellent and insightful article on the joys & tribulations of child care...

Living in Denmark, we have the whole Universal Package, with Universal Day Care, Universal Health Care, Universal Social Security, Universal College (i.e. free tuition + a generous grant to boot), Universally Bad Summer Holiday Weather, National Hans Christian Andersen Day... Oh yeah, & 45-50% tax rates... :-)

The expansive public day care system in Denmark comes in 3 flavours: Vuggestue (aka. Toddlers Day Care, 6 months to 3 years), Dagpleje (same as Vuggestue, but only 4-5 kiddies taken care of at a day care workers private home), Børnehave (Kindergarten, 3 to 5-6 years). It's all run by the local borough council. There are also private-owned services, but most opt for the public version. There is also a public guarantee for finding a day care place for ones cherubs before the kid's 1st birthday. One has to pay for these services, but as it's heavily subsidized the cost for parents is whittled down to approx. 25-33% of the price, i.e. about 400-600 USD per month.

All this is due to the fact that the percentage of working women in Denmark is among the highest in the world (73.1% in 2005) - that, and the fact the Denmark is probably one of the most Socialist countries in the world.

Wages are also an issue here as well: Both the nurses & the day care workers have just recently finished a month-long strike paralyzing most of the country, before settling for 12-13% wage increases. The more stringent economic views were "Can we afford these kinds of wage increases without screwing the economy?", while the opposing argument was "Can we afford not to?" As you mention in your article, we're talking about a pretty hard job that doesn't exactly give CEO bonuses. We have a pretty severe lack of workers to fill up the job market at the moment, and if employment conditions don't suit the picky youth of today, they'll just find work somewhere else, further exacerbating the shortage of workers in the public sector...

If you ask most Danish parents - especially after having to take care of their kids during the recent strike - they'll be only too happy to pay the sky-high taxes in order to keep a decent level of day-care for their children & the other socialist goodies. And most will probably also agree that the workers must get a decent wage - not only as a sign of respect for the job they do - but also to maintain a stable flow of new workers into the public sector as the 68'ers pack up & head for the beach... (water temperature in DK = 16-17°C, I might just join them...)