A Freakonomics experiment in the making
In their book Freakonomics, the authors relate a study that looked into charging parents a fine for turning up late to pick up their children.
Some economists ran a study at a number of day-care centers, first by keeping track of the number of late pickups for a ten week period before the fine was introduced and then again afterwards.
The results? The number of late pickups increased after the fine was introduced.
The authors claim (which seems reasonable to me) is that the moral incentive for picking up the children on time (“the poor teachers will have to stay late”) was replaced by an economic incentive (“I’m effectively paying for baby-sitting”).
It’s easy to replace a moral issue with an economic one if the price is right.
Maybe the fine was too low, but making it too high could be punishing to any goodwill garnered by the day-care center.
“I was stuck in traffic, sorry for being five minutes late.”
“Sorry Mr. Dad, but that’ll be $100.”
Why do I bring this up now? Well, in this week’s email missive from Julian’s day-care center, they informed us that from March 1st they’ll be introducing fines for late pickups.
It’s not enough that the day-care center treats the parents like children, but now they’re making a potentially bad goodwill mistake.
They don’t even say how much the fine will be. How’s that for being customer focused?
I’m of two minds whether to send them a copy of the Freakanomics section. It might be interesting to see whether they treat it as a cautionary tale or as an affront to their day-care managing expertise.
More to the point, if I asked them, would they collect and pass on the data about the change in late pickup numbers as a Freakonomics experiment?
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Ask the ZChick sometime about being on the other end of the 'service' industry and dealing with parents. Based on our small experiment I would say that 75% of the people are very good about paying on time, cancelling with appropriate notice and doing so on an infrequent basis. The other 25% try to see how far they can push the system. So those 25% don't even have any moral issues with the system and yes it sucks that you have to penalize everyone for the sake of the few but isn't that the case with just about everything these days. So you have to try and find a solution. You create a late fee, you make a policy that 24 hours cancellation is required for a makeup lesson. But the interesting twist for the ZChick is if you are one of the 75% tht are good parents then she's happy to stretch the policies on occasion.
And like I used to tell my employees when they bitched about the MS review system - if you don't like it make sure you suggest a better solution instead of just complaining. I can't think of a better solution to this one other than the disincentive. At least the poor teacher who has to stay late gets a few extra $$$
Which makes me think, maybe the book failed to mention that whilst late pickups increased teacher satisfaction increased too becuase instead of them working extra hours for nothing, now one teacher can volunteer to be the late person and make a bit more money.
My day care center charged a 25 dollar late fee and it feels somewhat degrading to be late to pick up your child. Not only do you feel bad for making your kid wait (in my case a one year old), you then pay a fine for being late on top of the exuberant amount of the normal weekly fee. It felt horrible to see my daughter the only neglected child in the toddler room nearly everday, then if traffic was really awful to have 25 bucks tacked on to remind you how awful a parent I am.
My resolution to the problem was to convince my employer to allow me to work from home. I had a 2 hour commute to work and a 2 hour commute home so not only have I eliminated the stress of this commute, but killed the weekly payment to daycare, begun to develop a bond with my daughter and seen her gain weight from not being sick everyday (since leaving daycare she has not been sick once in nearly 4 months now).
Sorry for the rambling but daycare was a poor experience for me, having restarted my life after a divorce 2 years ago and having another kid (6 between myself and my new wife) it is very enlightening to be a father and stay home with a 1 1/2 year old.
Ian.
Good for you Ian for finding an employer that allows telecommuting, I have a half hour commute and I find that too much.
About the daycare... when we enrolled our son I had read that there we're late fees and I was fine with that. I think that the teachers should get some overtime for staying later.
The problem was that our daycare didn't enforce it and is now trying impose this on now. Who knows whether the fees will be passed onto the staff. I'm sure some of the teaching assistants wouldn't mind the extra income. Esp when some of the assistants have 2nd jobs, and take up babysitting jobs to supplement their incomes.
Oi Andy, you know my thoughts about the MS bell-end curve ;)
See Ya.
Nabila
At my daughter's day care, years ago, the late fee was $1 per minute payable directly to the teacher, who kept the money. I was late once by 5 minutes, the teacher turned down the money, and I felt so bad about it that I made doubly sure that I was on time after that.
What are the freakonomics of that?
You contract for daycare: they provide a service for a certain number of hours per day. Why shouldn't they charge people who go over that limit, especially when someone has to work overtime? As it was for the commenter above, it can be a wake-up call that your child is there for too long. I've heard horror story after horror story about parents who have their kids there every hour the school is open (10-12 hours) even when the teachers know the parent isn't at work.
Sure, sometimes we know it's better if we quickly run to the grocery before picking up our children, but the day cares are open that long to accommodate different schedules, not be a warehouse for children their every waking hour.