Public attitudes toward government responsibility for child care: The impact of individual characteristics and welfare regimes

Abstract

This study examines the extent to which individual's attitudes toward government responsibility for child care provisions are influenced by personal characteristics as well as the social contexts in which these attitudes are formed. The analysis draws on data from a random sample of 24, 240 respondents in 12 of the countries included in the European Social Survey (ESS) round 4 (2008–2009). The analytic framework focuses on individual-level factors related to self-interest, perceptions of the current care available and egalitarian ideology as well as the societal context reflected in the alternative institutional arrangements for social welfare represented by the countries clustered into different welfare state regimes. The findings indicate that among the individual level variables, although factors related to self interest were significant, egalitarian ideology had the relatively strongest impact on the respondents' level of support for government provision of child care. At the institutional level the introduction of welfare regimes increased the proportion of explained variance well beyond that accounted for by individual level factors.