Child Care Policy Research Articles

Labour market gender gaps and childcare policies in countries with different social investment strategies

AbstractWe study the role of formal and informal childcare within the ECEC policies for gender employment and pay gaps, considering the life course stages distinctive for childcare tasks. The ECEC policies are framed within the types of social investment strategies identified in the EU countries to picture developments in social investments after 2005. The aggregated EU‐SILC data from 2005 to 2019 for 27 European countries have been used in the panel regression models to uncover how the caring arrangements influence labour market gendered outcomes of women at different ages (15–24, 25–49, 50–65). We find that better provision and use of early education and childcare not only contribute to early investment in human capital but it also facilitates mothers' employment and thus contributes to lowering gender employment and pay gaps. However, better coverage of care for children older than 3 years old results in negative employment effects for grandmothers. These effects vary also across countries, depending on their overall institutional setting depicted by the types of social investment strategies distinguished. Consequently, the ECEC agenda should be extended by addressing the employment of women at the pre‐retirement age. It is crucial not only for reducing gender gap in employment and pay but also in the light of challenges generated by demographic developments—the labour force shrinking and the population ageing processes.

Telework as a childcare policy: mitigating or increasing gender and class inequalities?

ABSTRACT The closure of schools and preschools due to the Covid-19 pandemic constrained millions of workers with children to modify their care arrangements. In Italy and France, governments adopted different measures to support parents in handling the additional care workload, including promoting access to telework. However, we argue that equating access to telework to a childcare policy, especially during the pandemic, had significant consequences in terms of gender and class inequalities. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in Italy and France, the article analyses the impact that telework as a social policy had on gender and class inequalities, stressing common trends and pointing out that caring for children while teleworking reinforces economic and gender inequalities. Moreover, the paper identifies strategies implemented by parents to cope with the challenge of child-caring while teleworking, highlighting that promoting such a policy can have unequal consequences depending on parents’ social and economic capital.

Childcare Balancing Policy in Japanese Corporations and Women’s Fertility Intention

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the childcare balancing policy and women’s fertility intention in Japanese corporations. This paper constructed two logistic regression models based on data from the 2010 Japanese Life Course Survey of Youth to analyze the correlation between childcare balancing policies and women’s fertility intentions. The binary logistic regression method was used. The results showed that women’s fertility intention is negatively associated with the childcare balancing policy in Japanese corporations. This may be because the research object already had a child or children. The results indicate that the fertility intention of women who had a child or children was lower than those without children. This paper discovered that regular employees had higher fertility intentions than non-regular staff. This paper provides policymakers with valuable insights on establishing effective childcare policies to enhance women’s fertility intentions.

Public Child Care Provision: Unraveling the Consequences of Implementation Variations for Women's Time Allocation

Abstract From analysis of the effects of a national childcare policy on women's time allocation in Costa Rica, it is found that childcare services are associated with increased female labor force participation, greater educational enrollment, and reduced unpaid care work. However, a comparison of two implementing agencies indicates that the overall effects vary by agency. One agency's services yield positive outcomes, such as increased labor force participation, reduced unpaid care work, and increased educational attendance; the other agency's results are less favorable, particularly for part-time childcare users. These findings highlight the challenges governments face when scaling up interventions, as different implementing agencies may modify program criteria, serve distinct populations, and offer varying services. While policies can be effective on a smaller scale, impacts may differ when they are scaled up. Understanding these variations can help governments adapt policies and reallocate resources to achieve their intended goals.

UK childcare policy: Navigating choices, challenges and the need for reform

UK childcare policy: Navigating choices, challenges and the need for reform In this article, Prof. Dr. Ingela Naumann, University of Fribourg, explores UK childcare policy through the Nordic perspective on parental work, and the struggle to balance choices for families in the face of societal and economic constraints. In spring 2023, the government pledged to expand its UK childcare policy (currently 30 hours free childcare for three- and four-year-olds) to one- and two-year-old children. Finally! I thought, as a Swedish academic who has been researching childcare, gender equality and work/life balance issues in the UK for many years. Sure, the current funding system for UK childcare is insufficient, causing many problems in the sector; however, the fact that a Tory government acknowledged the importance of childcare services for young children was a milestone.

The redistributive effects of size-dependent childcare policies

Governments often adopt policies to reduce the cost of childcare for working families, but those can distort the allocation of resources. We develop and calibrate a general equilibrium model with firm and household heterogeneity and study the case of Chile, where firms with more than 19 female employees must provide childcare. We find that removing this policy would increase welfare on average by 2.3% of consumption equivalent units over their lifetime. However, the removal would not translate into increases in GDP, in part because of a reduced labor supply. Instead, the main effects of the policy are redistributive, shifting resources away from females towards males. The policy reduces welfare for most females, and these losses are decreasing in income. In particular, low-education single females, who do not rely on a second wage, would gain up to 20% in consumption equivalent units by removing the policy. We propose that alternative childcare financing options would be preferred. Specifically, financing childcare through labor taxes would increase aggregate welfare by over 13%, with the largest gains accruing to single, low-education mothers.

Grandparental childcare, family allowances and retirement policies

AbstractThe paper uses an OLG model to study the interaction between policies designed to ensure the sustainability of the pension system, i.e. child allowances and pensions policies, and grandparental childcare. We find that the rise in grandparenting negatively affects the elderly labour supply hampering the impact of pension policies designed to raise the retirement age and lengthen working lives. Then, we introduce child allowances and find that the impact of child allowances on the fertility rate is influenced by the efficiency of grandparenting in reducing child-rearing costs. Child benefits have a positive impact on fertility only if grandparenting is not very effective at reducing childcare costs. This suggests that the role of grandparents in various countries may partly explain the inconsistency in empirical evidence on the relationship between child benefits and fertility rates. The study also finds that child benefits have a positive impact on the elderly labour supply when grandparenting is efficient.

Expanding access to high-quality early care and education for families with low income in Maryland through child care subsidy policies

Documenting how federal and state child care policies increase equitable access to high-quality early care and education (ECE) for families with low- and moderate-incomes remains a challenge in part due to overlaps in policy enactment. This study used an interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) to describe changes to providers’ participation in Maryland's child care subsidy program following implementation of a constellation of child care policies enacted between January 5, 2015, and March 2, 2020 (i.e., prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). Findings indicate a marked increase in the percentage of licensed family child care (FCC) and center-based providers serving children with a subsidy following increases in household income eligibility levels and provider reimbursement rates in 2018. Provider participation rates varied by neighborhood income level, with participation expanding more in neighborhoods with lower poverty density relative to their starting level in 2015. Changes in child participation rates by income eligibility mirrored changes in state subsidy policy: children residing in income-eligible households above 200 % federal poverty level represented 4.4 % of the child sample in 2018, 13 % in 2019, and 18 % in 2020. The proportion of children with a subsidy who used higher-rated ECE increased significantly between January 2018 and January 2020 for all racial/ethnic groups, income eligibility levels, and urbanicity categories. The majority (62 %) of children who stayed in the subsidy program between 2018 and 2019 stayed with their same provider, many of which obtained their first rating or increased their quality rating during this time frame in accordance with a new requirement for providers to participate in the state's quality rating system to receive a subsidy reimbursement. Implications for future research, policy, and practice are discussed.

The Multigenerational Impact of Children and Childcare Policies

The Multigenerational Impact of Children and Childcare Policies

Shaping gender disparity in childcare between dual-earner parents in urban China: An exploratory study of influencing factors

Gender disparity in parenting is prominent in contemporary heterosexual families. However, investigations into multi-dimensional factors shaping the disparity in China are limited, though Chinese care arrangements and practices are increasingly influential worldwide with the process of globalization. Therefore, this research uses multi-source data from the 2012 Chinese General Social Survey and the 2014–2015 China Education Panel Survey for quantitative analysis, to explore what drives urban dual-earner parents to share childcare or not. Specifically, the disparity is captured via both parents' general intentions to share paid job and unpaid care responsibilities, and concrete paternal relative time contributions to different types of child-rearing. Two major conclusions are drawn from descriptive statistics and linear regressions. Firstly, there are gendered differences in factors that shape parenting (in)equality. Secondly, there are both similarities and differences in factors of gender (in)equality among different caregiving activities. The results implicate that future childcare and family policies need to be directed towards both genders in diverse domains and be attentive to both quantitative and qualitative inequality.

어린이집 선택요인에 대한 요구도 조사

The purpose of this study is to understand the needs of parents based on their importance and satisfaction with childcare center selection factors. To this objective, a questionnaire was administered to parents enrolled in 20 childcare centers in B city. The final 191 data collected were analyzed using SPSS 25.0 and Excel. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, among parental background characteristics, there were differences in the importance of childcare center selection factors based on parental employment status and child age. Parents in their 20s and 30s were more satisfied than parents in their 40s. Second, the IPA results of the childcare center selection factors showed that health, safety, and staff were in the maintenance quadrant (quadrant 1), and childcare curriculum and interaction were in the focus quadrant (quadrant 2). However, in the results of each subfactor, there were differences in the IPA results of the selected factors and the selected subfactors, as health and safety, staff, and childcare curriculum and interaction were in the maintenance area (quadrant 1), and childcare curriculum and interaction, child care environment, and operation management were in the intensive effort area (quadrant 2). Third, the Borich needs analysis showed that the needs for balanced meals, respect for children by teachers, respect without discrimination, appropriate interactions, and health care for children were ranked high. Based on these results, implications for childcare center management and childcare policies were presented.

키워드 네트워크 분석을 통해 살펴본 저출산 관련 보육정책에 대한 역대 정부별 연구동향 분석

Objectives The purpose of this study is to provide directions for child-care support policies related to low fertility by examining the research trends of successive government on child-care policies related to low fertility using keyword network analysis.
 Methods For this purpose, thesis and KCI academic journal D/B provided by the Research Information Sharing Service of the Korea Education and Research Information Service were used to collect rawDATA with keywords such as ‘low fertility’ and ‘few births’. A 1-mode matrix dataset was created based on the data that had been systematically reviewed and the first and second refinements were completed, and a keyword network analysis was performed on the entire and successive government.
 Results The results of this study were as follows: First, by thesis type, academic journals had the most, and by policy area, the power was the most. Second, as a result of examining research trends by successive governments, the first period was named ‘the introductory period of state-led fertility promotion policy research to improve the fertility rate’, the second period was named ‘the transition period of fertility promotion policy research to improve the quality of life’, and the third period was named ‘the strengthening period of big data-based fertility promotion policy research to explore social awareness’, which indicates that the flow of research changes from the 1st to the 3rd stage.
 Conclusions Based on these analysis results, it is possible to confirm the overall trend of child-care policies related to low fertility and research trends by successive governments, as well as suggest implications for the preparation of childcare support policies related to low fertility.

Childcare Support Policies, Endogenous Fertility, Human Capital Accumulation, and Dynamics of National Debt

This paper analyzes the interaction among childcare support policies, endogenous fertility, and human capital accumulation using an overlapping-generations model, which is mainly based on Groezen, Leers and Mejidam (2003) and Cardak (2004). Although Groezen, Leers and Mejidam (2003) consider endogenous fertility and child allowances financed by tax or foreign debt in a model of a small open economy, they ignore educational expenditures and do not analyze human capital accumulation and national debt. Although Cardak (2004) considers human capital accumulation and assumes it is determined by governmental or parental expenditures on education and by parent’s human capital endowments, he ignores child allowances and assumes population size is constant in each period. This study considers human capital accumulation in a model introduced childcare time with endogenous fertility and assumes that child allowances and childcare services are financed by income tax and national debt. We then consider two childcare support policies―raise child allowances or expand childcare services―and compare the effects of both policies on endogenous fertility and human capital accumulation. Moreover, we analyze dynamics of national debt.

“I Know What I’m Doing and It Feels Good”: Black and Latine Women Transforming New Orleans Childcare Practice and Policy Through Participatory Research

This piece is a collective reflection of three perspectives while designing and guiding a participatory action research (PAR) project as part of a larger grant. We draw on firsthand experiences of three women—a participant in the program, the PAR program director, and the grant project director—to highlight stories of the impact of PAR in the collaborative named New Orleans Louisiana Creating Access and Resources for Equity and Success (NOLA C.A.R.E.S.). This collaborative of organizations (funded by J.P. Morgan Chase) seeks to develop policies that build wealth for women who work in the early care and education industry in Bulbancha (Choctow for “Land of Many Tongues” colonized as New Orleans). One major aim of PAR in NOLA C.A.R.E.S. is to pinpoint methods of equitable access to programs and resources that build and sustain wealth in Black and Latine communities. Each participant identifies as Black and/or Latine and Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a primary feature. Although we are using the separate terms “Black” and “Latine” women when referring to our population of interest, we note that the various intersections of ethnicity and race within the African Diaspora allow for multiple and combined identities (for example, Black, African-Latina/Afro-Latina, Latinx, Afro-Latine, Caribbean Latine and many more). First, we introduce the landscape of NOLA CARES, a granted-funded, diverse, eleven-organization collaborative. Then, we zoom into the PAR component by defining PAR, the process, and key principles. Next, we highlight stories from three Black women who touched the PAR program: one who experienced, one who designed, and one who supported the grant collaborative work. Then, we describe guiding frameworks of participatory research with concrete examples of centering, sharing, and ceding power with Black and Latine women as a primary method of PAR and dismantling White Supremacist Culture (WSC). Finally, we conclude with learnings moving forward.

The effects of Korea’s free childcare policy on women’s time use allocation

ABSTRACT This study applies the DID method to the 3rd and 5th Time Use Survey in Korea to demonstrate the impact of South Korea’s free childcare policy on time allocation of women with preschool children. Estimation results indicate that the free childcare policy increased working hours of married women with preschool children and free time for full-time housewives. These results imply that the free childcare policy promotes women’s work-family balance and prevents women’s career interruptions. It also highlights the reality of daycare facilities-oriented operation which is a characteristic of Korea’s free childcare policy.

인구감소지역 어린이집 원장의 보육정책에 관한 인식과 요구

Objectives The purposes of this study was to examine day-care center directors’ child-care policies in the depopulation areas.
 Methods To this end, it administered questionnaires to directors of 25 day-care centers located at the depopulation areas and conducted a descriptive statistical analysis on the responses.
 Results The findings are as follows: First, the reorganization of the child-care support system was positively recognized in terms of the management of day-care centers and extended class, the enhancement of child-care quality and users’ satisfaction. On the other hand, it did not contribute to the reduction of day-care teachers’ paperwork, preparation for daily lessons and increase of research time. The management of open child-care centers was positively recognized, while it was reported to increase day-care center teachers’ workload and make it difficult to encourage parents’ participation. The service satisfaction of the day-care center support system was generally higher. Second, it was found to be most difficult to ‘attract kindergartners’ in managing day-care centers in the depopulation areas. Vulnerable child-care services (young children with special needs and multicultural child-care) were in the strongest demand.
 Conclusions This study intends to provide basic data for developing and managing child-care policies proper and specific to the depopulation areas and suggestions for more substantial customized child-care policies.

아동기 학업스트레스가 학업적 실패내성에 미치는 영향

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of childhood academic stress on academic failure tolerance, and to examine the moderating effect of father-child attachment in this relationship.
 Methods: We analyzed the data of 1,145 children who participated in the 12th wave survey for the Korean Children’s Panel Study, which was established by the Childcare Policy Research Institute. Using Process macro (Hayes, 2013), multiple regression analysis was conducted. Results: Childhood academic stress showed a negative impact on academic failure tolerance. In addition, the moderating effect of father-child attachment was found. The regression lines for each group classified according to the level of father-child attachment showed different slopes, indicating the higher the attachment, the smaller negative effect of academic stress. Conclusions: The results confirm a moderating effect of father-child attachment, which mitigates the negative impact of childhood academic stress on academic failure tolerance. Based on the results of this study, policy and practical implications for promoting father-child attachment formation are discussed.

Falling by the “wasteside”: Defining and moving towards educator well-being from the perspective of early childhood educators in Ontario, Canada

It has been well-established that highly gendered, early childhood education workforces face major temporal, material, physical and psychological barriers to being well. This issue is particularly pressing in this political moment: a national childcare policy program is being rolled out for the first time in Canadian history. It is in this context that we take a grounded theory methodological approach, rooted in feminist care ethics, to centre and analyse the voices of early childhood educators in both conceptualising well-being and identifying ideas and strategies for moving closer to it. We suggest that concurrently addressing the material and discussive value of early childhood educators is necessary to disrupt existing social structures that rely on early childhood educator’s exploitation. We conclude that truly dismantling what is and building a something better can only be done when early childhood educators’ voices and embodied experiences are centered in the decision-making process.

학교적응이 아동의 삶의 만족도에 미치는 영향

Objectives The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of children's school adjustment on life satisfaction and to determine whether self-esteem functions as a mediator between these variables, thereby securing basic information that can contribute to the promotion of life satisfaction. Methods We used data from the 13th year (2020) of the Korea Child Panel of the Child Care Policy Institute. The 13th year data reflects the developmental characteristics of the children in the panel, as most of the children who have participated in the panel so far have entered the 6th grade of elementary school and are called adolescents in the later stages of school age. Of the 2,150 households in the Korean Child Panel, we analyzed data from 1,397 of the 1,359 children who responded to the school adjustment, self-esteem, and life satisfaction questions. Spss ver 25.0 was used for statistical analysis. Tests were conducted to measure variables related to children's life sat-isfaction, and school adjustment, self-esteem, and life satisfaction were selected as variables in the structural equation model. Results The main findings of the study are as follows First, school adjustment has a positive effect on children's life satisfaction. Second, school adjustment has a positive effect on self-esteem. Third, there is a partial media-tion effect of self-esteem on the relationship between school adjustment and children's life satisfaction. Conclusions This means that children's positive school adjustment affects their life satisfaction. Based on this, we can confirm that children's school adjustment is an important factor that affects not only life satisfaction but also children's self-esteem, and it is necessary to develop practical interventions and various programs to im-prove children's school adjustment, self-esteem, and life satisfaction.

생애 첫 부모가 되는 초보 부모를 위한 교육내용 탐색

Objectives The purposes of this study were to propose content categories of educational materials to strengthen the competencies of new parents who become parents for the first-time in their lives.
 Methods To this end, a total of 22 domestic and international parent education materials developed and dis-seminated by government departments, universities, and public medical institutions from January 2013 to January 2023 were analyzed. The materials were analyzed based on knowledge, skills, and attitudes according to Azar and Cote’s theory(2002). Based on the results, this study proposed the content categories for new parents educational materials, and verified their validity.
 Results In both domestic and international parent education materials, ‘knowledge’ related-content accounted for the largest proportion, and ‘attitude’-related content accounted for the smallest proportion. Regarding “knowledge,” domestic parent education focused on providing childbirth and childcare policy information, while international education focused on knowledge that could prevent parental confusion immediately after childbirth. Regarding ‘skills’, the domestic education content outlined the skills of ‘feeding, sleeping, etc.’, while the interna-tional content provided specific parenting skills tips for each month. With regard to ‘attitude’, both domestic and international education contents deal with stress management and depression after childbirth, and in the case of international education content, it was intended to help parents slow down and have healthy interactions with their children.
 Conclusions The proposed category of new parent education content consisted of 4 categories and 10 topics. The four categories are: 1) parenthood, pregnancy and childbirth, 2) 1 year of age, baby's incredible capabilities, 3) 1 year of parenthood, becoming a competent parent, and 4) parenting, slow down. This will help reduce the con-fusion of postnatal parenting for new parents and improve their competence as parents, and it will contribute to creating a positive parenting environment in our society.