Libertarian thinktank CIS has produced a snapshot report that concludes childcare continues to become less affordable for working families.  Women's Agenda concurs, claiming that the regulation of childcare has focused on promoting early childhood education and highly contestable measures of quality in childcare, at the expense of affordability and accessibility. More of us are using formal childcare in order to participate in the workforce, yet Government policies on childcare are working at cross-purposes, on one hand reducing childcare costs through price subsidies while on the other hand driving up costs through a complex National Quality Framework that has cemented childcare as a high-cost and inflexible service.   Governments at all levels must decide if the primary policy objective of supporting childcare is female workforce participation or the early education of children.

Alys Gagnon, Executive Director of The Parenthood argues policy that makes for worse early childhood education is reprehensible at best, asserting that we must always push for policy settings that place the needs of children at the heart of early learning and care.