[jltsiren]

As some countries provide near-universal daycare, the numbers can be made to make sense.

In Finland, the requirement is 1 carer for 4 children under 3, 1/7 for full-time care above 3, and 1/13 for part-time care above 3. Assuming 1 year of parental leave, 2 years at 1/4, 3 years at 1/7, and 1 year at 1/13, the average child requires 1 person-year of daycare. Assuming 40-year careers, an optimistic fertility rate 2.1, only women working in daycare, and some overhead, we would need 6-7% of women working in daycare.

[anon291]

Finland has a fertility rate of 1.4 children / woman. That's a below-replacement rate, and thus I don't think Finland can be used as an example of a sustainable daycare system

[jltsiren]

The point was that even with a sustainable fertility rate of 2.1, the daycare system would only need to employ a few percent of the total workforce.