Abstract
In developed countries with decreasing fertility rates, the provision of public daycare and kindergarten (PDK) is considered to be an important policy for boosting national birth rates. Since PDK is free, its spatial accessibility becomes the most critical factor for parents in choosing the service. The study uses the popular two-step floating catchment area model (2SFCA) to analyze the spatial accessibility of PDKs at a 100 m × 100 m cell level in Seoul, South Korea. A GIS-automated regionalization method, Mixed-Level Regionalization (MLR), is employed to divide the study area into homogenous regions based on a concentrated disadvantage index (CDI). The analysis then proceeds to examine the disparity of PDK accessibility across these constructed regions. The result empowers parents to be informed of the access of PDKs in their current neighborhoods or to look for neighborhoods with adequate access. Several policy measures are proposed for improving overall accessibility of PDKs and more so for underserved populations.
Highlights
More economically developed countries have low fertility rates, which, along with the aging population, may adversely affect public finances and standards of living [1]
One recent effort in South Korea is the expansion of public daycares and kindergartens in lieu of subsidizing private childcare services [8]
The following data sets were defined for implementing the 2SFCA toolkit: (1) A supply layer of 1231 public daycare and kindergarten (PDK) with corresponding capacities, (2) A demand layer of 19,826 cells with locations defined by their centroids and amounts measured by numbers of children 0–6 years old, and (3) A road network distance matrix between the above two within 700 m
Summary
More economically developed countries have low fertility rates, which, along with the aging population, may adversely affect public finances and standards of living [1]. A wide range of family-related policies has been proposed to encourage women to stay in the workforce while caring for their children. One of these policies focuses on improving accessibility of childcare [5,6,7]. One recent effort in South Korea is the expansion of public daycares and kindergartens (hereafter referred to as “PDKs”) in lieu of subsidizing private childcare services [8]. In light of this ongoing campaign, it is important to understand which parents and locations receive more benefits, and which parents and locations are left behind
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