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Tangentially related: Childcare subsidies are a big win for governments because it lets them convert what would otherwise be "unpaid" labour into something that appears in GDP.

Better than that; by transferring a bit of money from taxpayers you can account for wages from 2 paid jobs, the mother's and the carer's.

There is a sort of neoliberal logic to it of course; in early childcare in my country, ratios are 4:1 - there is an "efficiency gain" if the mother earns more than childcare fees for the children under care.

But of course childcare availability is certainly not a bad thing even if there might be agendas in play.