Dr. Emily Murphy:

I would fully agree with what Professor Murphy said on the framing of that. It can sometimes be difficult to see what is going on with these cost-benefit analyses. The major thing that comes out of research where there is greater investment would be that in terms of social shifts, which we covered here, which is a cultural shift in how we focus on quality of care, quality of care will be improved if it is built into educational, social and economic systems where it is seen to be invested in. In addition, while we do not want to overplay too much the “You invest here and then you see returns in this way”, women’s participation in the labour market will also be improved if there is greater access. This is also important, not just from an economic model, but also culturally. The next question asked was on secondary school education. If younger people are seeing more varied roles that men and women are doing in society, this also shifts culture quite a bit. Therefore, there is an important aspect to increasing women’s employment in particular.