I'd also submit, that in this country at least, school has become looked upon as "free" public day care in more ways than one - such that both parents are free to work while little Johnny is in school - or are forced to work because the corporate world has taken advantage of the situation and lowered wages to the point such that the "single income" household is now a rarity, and the parents have no choice but for both of them to enter the workforce to make ends meet.
I remember watching on C-SPAN many years ago a discussion on employer-provided day care - that the reason many employers eagerly adopted this, was that they could then lower wages to the point such that BOTH parents were forced to seek employment - IOW it was "cost-effective" from a business standpoint.
