The politics of childcare centres

Episode 11, The Childcare CentreShow notesThe story in this episode is composite, drawn from real events. Identifying details are changed. Real-world events the story draws on, full citations, and further reading are below.REAL-WORLD EVENTS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODEAustralia- The 2026-27 federal budget handed down by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Tuesday 12 May 2026, including the Three Day Guarantee replacing the activity test on subsidised early childhood education hours from 5 January 2026 with a universal entitlement of 72 hours per fortnight, or 100 hours where additional eligibility applies, not dependent on parental work activity; the Worker Retention Payment, a A$3.6 billion two-year wage subsidy for ECEC educators delivering a 10 per cent increase from 2 December 2024 and a further 5 per cent from 1 December 2025, supporting over 200,000 educators with around A$160 per week increase on relevant award rates; the Building Early Education Fund, a A$1 billion capital fund for new centres in underserved outer-suburban and regional areas; the A$17.6 million National Worker Register; the A$54.8 million Inclusion Support Program; the A$139.7 million Thriving Kids early intervention program; the A$0.7 million Little Scientists program; and consultation flagged with states and territories on the establishment of a national early childhood education and care Commission.- The Productivity Commission's inquiry into early childhood education and care, commissioned in February 2023 and co-led by Professor Emerita Deborah Brennan AM of the UNSW Social Policy Research Centre, with the final report A path to universal early childhood education and care released on 18 September 2024, making 56 recommendations and proposing a phased move toward universal access by 2036, with the central political-philosophical argument that ECEC should be reframed as foundational social infrastructure comparable to schools and Medicare.- The Fair Work Commission's Priority Awards Review of gender-based undervaluation, with the Children's Services Award 2010 as one of the priority awards under review, addressing the historical structural wage discount carried by female-dominated care sectors.- The decades-long Australian feminist scholarly conversation on universal early childhood education and care, running from the 1970s and gathered into its major historical reference point in Deborah Brennan's The Politics of Australian Child Care: Philanthropy to Feminism and Beyond, published in revised form by Cambridge University Press in 1998.- Anne Manne's Motherhood: How Should We Care for Our Children?, published by Allen & Unwin in 2005 and named a finalist for the 2006 Walkley Award for Book of the Year, with the foundational Australian argument that orthodox economic accounting fails to register the political-economic foundation of care.International theoretical tradition- Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, the founding pamphlet The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (1972), and the launch of the international Wages for Housework movement at the same time, arguing that the political invisibility of women's unpaid labour was a structural condition of capital accumulation.- Marilyn Waring, New Zealand feminist economist and former parliamentarian, with If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics (1988), demonstrating that the United Nations System of National Accounts excluded women's unpaid care work from gross domestic product calculations and shaping subsequent revisions to the SNA.- Joan Tronto, American political theorist, with Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (1993) and Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice (2013), with the argument that the political category of citizenship has been constructed in opposition to relational care.- Tithi Bhattacharya, Indian-American Marxist feminist historian and Professor of South Asian History at Purdue University, editor of Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (Pluto Press, 2017), the major contemporary gathering of the social reproduction tradition.Sweden- The publication in 1934 of Alva and Gunnar Myrdal's Kris i befolkningsfrågan (Crisis in the Population Question), setting out the foundational social-democratic argument that universal public early childhood education and care would be both a social right of children and a structural foundation of women's economic equality. Alva Myrdal later received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 for her disarmament work; Gunnar Myrdal received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974.- The Swedish Förskolelagen (Preschool Act) of 1975, formally establishing the framework for publicly funded universal early childhood education, and the Preschool for All bill of 1984 extending the framework. Attendance among Swedish children aged one to five rose from approximately 17 per cent in 1975 to 90 per cent by 2005, with the policy framework treating early childhood education as public infrastructure on the same political-philosophical footing as schools and hospitals.Cuba- The founding of the Federación de Mujeres Cubanas (Federation of Cuban Women), or FMC, by Cuban revolutionary and chemical engineer Vilma Espín on 23 August 1960, as the principal organising body for the political incorporation of women into the new Cuban state.- The opening on 10 April 1961, one week before the Bay of Pigs invasion, of the first three círculos infantiles (children's circles) in working-class neighbourhoods of Havana, named Camilo Cienfuegos, Ciro Frías, and Fulgencio Oroz, establishing publicly funded early childhood education and care as a foundational element of socialist citizenship and as the structural mechanism for women's full participation in the post-revolutionary workforce.REFERENCES[1] Anne Manne, Motherhood: How Should We Care for Our Children? (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2005), https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Anne-Manne-Motherhood-9781741145090; Walkley Foundation, "2006 Walkley Award shortlist for Book of the Year," https://www.walkleys.com/; "Anne Manne," The Monthly, contributor page, https://www.themonthly.com.au/author/anne-manne.[2] Tithi Bhattacharya (ed.), Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (London: Pluto Press, 2017), https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745399881/social-reproduction-theory/; Tithi Bhattacharya, Purdue University faculty page, https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/history/directory/index.aspx?p=Tithi_Bhattacharya; Susan Ferguson, Women and Work: Feminism, Labour, and Social Reproduction (London: Pluto Press, 2019).[3] Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972); Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1975); Louise Toupin, Wages for Housework: A History of an International Feminist Movement, 1972-1977 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018).[4] Marilyn Waring, If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988); Marilyn Waring, Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Marilyn Waring, Still Counting: Wellbeing, Women's Work and Policy-Making (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2018), https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/still-counting/.[5] Joan Tronto, Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (New York: Routledge, 1993), https://www.routledge.com/9780415906425; Joan Tronto, Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice (New York: New York University Press, 2013), https://nyupress.org/9780814782781/caring-democracy/; Berenice Fisher and Joan Tronto, "Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring," in Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women's Lives, ed. Emily K. Abel and Margaret K. Nelson (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990).[6] Alva Myrdal and Gunnar Myrdal, Kris i befolkningsfrågan (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1934); Yvonne Hirdman, Alva Myrdal: The Passionate Mind, trans. Linda Schenck (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008); Nobel Foundation, "Alva Myrdal, Nobel Peace Prize 1982," https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1982/myrdal-a/facts/; Nobel Foundation, "Gunnar Myrdal, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1974," https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/myrdal/facts/.[7] Förskolelagen 1975:1132 (Sweden), Riksdag legislative record; Government of Sweden, Förskola för alla barn, Government Bill 1984/85:209; Skolverket (Swedish National Agency for Education), Förskola i förändring (Stockholm: Skolverket, 2008), https://www.skolverket.se/; OECD, Starting Strong V: Transitions from Early Childhood Education and Care to Primary Education (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2017), Sweden country profile, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264276253-en.[8] Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, official institutional history, https://www.mujeres.cu/; Karen Wald, "Vilma Espín," obituary, The Guardian, 21 June 2007, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jun/21/guardianobituaries.cuba; Catherine Murphy (dir.), Maestra (2012), documentary on women's literacy work in the early Cuban Revolution; Yolanda Ferrer Gómez, La Federación de Mujeres Cubanas: una organización con historia (Havana: Editorial de la Mujer, 2010); Margaret Randall, Cuban Women Now: Interviews with Cuban Women (Toronto: Women's Press, 1974).[9] Deborah Brennan, The Politics of Australian Child Care: Philanthropy to Feminism and Beyond, revised ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), https://www.cambridge.org/9780521629454; Deborah Brennan, UNSW Social Policy Research Centre profile, https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/deborah-brennan; Deborah Brennan and Marian Sawer, "Childcare and the Welfare State in Australia," Social Politics 14, no. 1 (2007), https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxm002.[10] Productivity Commission, A path to universal early childhood education and care, Inquiry Report No. 106 (Canberra: Australian Government, 18 September 2024), https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/childhood/report; Productivity Commission, A path to universal early childhood education and care: Overview (Canberra: Australian Government, 2024), https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/childhood/report/childhood-overview.pdf.[11] Fair Work Commission, Gender-based undervaluation Priority Awards Review, Statement and Decision, Matter Nos. AM2024/4-9, https://www.fwc.gov.au/hearings-decisions/major-cases/gender-based-undervaluation; Fair Work Commission, Children's Services Award 2010 (MA000120), https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/documents/modern_awards/award/ma000120/default.htm.[12] Australian Government, Budget 2026-27, Budget Paper No. 2: Expense Measures, https://budget.gov.au/; Department of Education, Cheaper Child Care, including Three Day Guarantee from 5 January 2026, https://www.education.gov.au/early-childhood/early-childhood-education-and-care/cheaper-child-care; Department of Education, Worker Retention Payment, https://www.education.gov.au/early-childhood/worker-retention-payment; Department of Education, Building Early Education Fund, https://www.education.gov.au/early-childhood/building-early-education-fund.FURTHER READINGAnne Manne, Motherhood (2005). The foundational Australian work on the political philosophy of care, written from a position in Australian political theory.Tithi Bhattacharya (ed.), Social Reproduction Theory (2017). The major contemporary gathering of the social reproduction tradition, with chapters from Susan Ferguson, David McNally, Nancy Fraser, Salar Mohandesi, Emma Teitelman, Tithi Bhattacharya, Cinzia Arruzza, and others.Marilyn Waring, If Women Counted (1988). The foundational text in feminist economics on the political consequences of national accounting frameworks that exclude women's unpaid care work.Joan Tronto, Caring Democracy (2013). On the structural place of care in democratic theory and the political construction of citizenship in opposition to caring labour.Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (2004). On the historical political economy of women's reproductive labour and the witch hunts as a moment in the constitution of capitalist labour relations.Nancy Folbre, The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (2001). On the political economy of care work and its structural undervaluation.Deborah Brennan, The Politics of Australian Child Care (1998). The historical reference text for the Australian conversation on early childhood education and care across the late twentieth century.Productivity Commission, A path to universal early childhood education and care (2024). The major contemporary Australian policy text on the case for universal early childhood education and care as foundational social infrastructure.Yvonne Hirdman, Alva Myrdal: The Passionate Mind (2008). Major scholarly biography of Alva Myrdal, covering the political philosophy behind the Swedish welfare state model of early childhood education.Margaret Randall, Cuban Women Now (1974). Early documentary record of the political incorporation of Cuban women through the FMC and the círculos infantiles in the first decade after the Revolution.Selma James, Sex, Race and Class: The Perspective of Winning (2012). Collected writings of Selma James across four decades of the Wages for Housework movement.Susan Pedersen, Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914-1945 (1993). Cambridge University Press historical study of how the politics of family policy shaped the formation of European welfare states.Eva Feder Kittay, Love's Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency (1999). On the political philosophy of dependency work and its place in theories of equality and justice.All works, organisations, scholars, legislation, and historical events listed above are real and citable. For any source intended for formal academic or professional writing, direct verification against the original publication or institutional record is recommended.About the hostLiv Roe is a civic and political adviser based in Melbourne. She works with businesses, organisations, and individuals on the political and civic context of their work. Book a consultation at livroe.org. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit civicsandcommerce.substack.com