[internaut]

I hear a litany of complaints from parents about paying for childcare, and also with paying for grandpa/grandma's nursing facilities. If you add up the costs and deduct them from salary + cost of living, very, very few middle class families are going to come out ahead.

It is expected (in my country) that a retirement home is so expensive it shall require the sale of the family home, so inheritances don't pass to the children or grandchildren.

I've worked before in nursing care facilities/retirement homes, and I'm certain most of the people there receive very little simulation and few visitors. It's a miserable and lonely existence.

I'm a fan of using markets for lots of things, but the market mechanism is overly used for this particular usecase and lots of people are under enormous strain because of it.

Basically the only case in which they ought to be used is in the final months/years where the person is too frail or incapacitated i.e. like state care systems.

tldr; I do not in fact believe it is economic. Additionally it damages a heap of other things ranging from cultural transmission (long term repercussions) to mental health on a personal level. It is a bad deal.