A new study concludes that child-care subsidies and parental-leave policies in Austria have failed to reduce the gender gap in pay or increase birthrates. It’s an important finding if true, and the Wall Street Journal’s editors are right to bring attention to it. They’re wrong, though, to suggest that the findings undermine the case for the expanded child tax credit or generous child allowance that some American legislators in both parties have been talking about.
The expanded credit or new allowance would be different from the Austrian policies in significant respects. They would benefit parents even if they do not pay for child care, and even if they are in households with only one adult in paid employment. Since married couples with one earner tend to have more children than other types of household, we might expect policies that help them to have different effects from ones that practically exclude them.
I favor such policies as a matter of fairness, because the burden of the federal government now falls disproportionately on parents and especially the parents of large families. They may also enable people to have more children, given that surveys find that American women want to have more than they do. I may be wrong about these issues, of course, but this study of Austria doesn’t give us evidence either way.