$100 A Day Per Child And Rising

Essential Baby
Paying $100 a day for childcare in Sydney's inner suburbs is fast becoming the norm, fuelling calls for the federal government to pay the childcare rebate weekly instead of quarterly.

Almost a third of parents pay more than $80 a day in fees, compared with one in five last year, and 15 per cent in 2008, according to the Annual Child Care and Workforce Participation Survey conducted by the childcare resource website Care for Kids.

And a Sun-Herald poll of 20 childcare centres in Sydney offering places for children aged 0-2 found fees of more than $100 a day were not unusual.

Care for Kids founder Roxanne Elliott said the survey of 2112 parents with preschool-aged children showed although parents were generally happy with the quality of childcare, there was concern that costs were continually creeping up.

''A lot of people equate [childcare] to paying private school fees,'' Ms Elliott said. ''People are weighing up the pros and cons as to whether it's financially viable.''
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