Public or Private Responsibility? Early Childhood Education and Care, Inequality, and the Welfare State

Public investments in early childhood education and care (ECEC) have grown substantially during recent decades in most of the industrialized welfare states. Although ECEC provision is increasing everywhere, institutional arrangements for providing and financing services still vary substantially across countries at similar levels of economic development. This policy variation reflects variation in several interlocking public decisions about the financing and delivery of care services. By socializing the care of children to a greater or lesser degree these policy choices have implications for the reduction of inequalities in the modern welfare state, in both family income and in labor market outcomes. In this paper we examine variation in the institutional arrangements for ECEC in fourteen industrialized countries. We then examine the consequences of these arrangements for the availability and affordability of c and the implications for the reduction of various forms of social inequality.

Link: Public or Private Responsibility? Early Childhood Education and Care, Inequality, and the Welfare State