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Six states supply rights to paid leave. First, after passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in , states providing temporary disability insurance TDI were required to treat pregnancy as a short-term disability. As a result, new mothers in these states receive partial payment usually one-half to two-thirds of earnings for around six weeks; job reinstatement at the end of the leave is not guaranteed. California did so first. Its program, which took effect in , offers six weeks of leave with 55 percent of earnings replaced up to a ceiling.
Job-protection is not guaranteed nor are part-time workers covered. This program was scheduled to begin in but budget issues have delayed its implementation until In contrast to the United States, Europe has a long tradition of maternity leave, with the first programs enacted in Germany and Sweden at the end of the 19 th century. These rights were initially linked to sick leaves, ranged between 4 and 12 weeks, with limited lump sum or flat rate payment benefits and no job protection.
These policies were typically paternalistic in their concern for health of the child and mother, with at least some of the leave being compulsory, and often had a pronatalist and nationalistic orientation. After the end of World War II, eligibility for maternity leave was frequently widened, durations expanded and cash payments provided or enhanced. Many nations previously mandating compulsory leaves added job-protection and have recently extended durations through the implementation of parental leave provisions available to mothers or fathers.
Current European parental leave policies exhibit substantial cross-country variation, but also common elements. Employment Relations Research Series no. Center for Economic Policy Research, All European nations offer paid maternity leave, typically 14 to 20 weeks sometimes subsumed into the broader parental leave system , with 70 to percent of previous wages replaced. There are much larger disparities following the end of maternity leave. Three years or more of job-protected time off work are provided in Finland, France, Germany and Spain, with entitlements ranging between 1.
However, these long durations can be misleading because some countries e. Denmark and Italy provide shorter leaves but at higher rates of pay. Paternity leave is less common and of shorter duration. All but two of the 17 European nations in Table 2 provide fathers at least some time off work but replacement of at least two-thirds of previous earnings for three weeks or more is supplied in just five countries Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway, and Portugal ; others offer only a few days of highly paid paternity leave Greece and the Netherlands or none at all Austria, Ireland, and Italy.
Leave payments are generally financed through payroll taxes or general government revenues, rather than directly by employers, consistent with ILO and European Union standards. This is motivated by the desire to spread the costs widely, so as not to burden specific employers, and to reduce the likelihood that companies discriminate against persons most likely to take leave. Employment history requirements are short — usually six months or less with the firm — although some countries require slightly longer periods of prior work or social insurance contributions to qualify for full benefits.
Using the total number of months of highly paid leave as a summary indicator of leave rights, the greatest generosity — 9 to 15 months at high pay — is supplied by Germany and the five Nordic countries Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. Flexibility in the use of parental but typically not maternity leave is offered over a variety of dimensions including: Canadian leave policies are of interest given the many institutions and traditions it shares with the U. Although just three provinces offered job-protected maternity leave in , by all mandated rights to at least 15 weeks of leave; in , the durations ranged from 52 to 54 weeks, except for the week entitlement in Quebec.
The first 15 to 18 weeks are maternity leave, reserved for mothers, while either parent can use the remainder. Leave is administered at the provincial rather than national level with benefits provided through the Employment Insurance EI system and financed by employee premiums. To qualify for leave, individuals must have worked at least hours and paid EI premiums during the prior 52 weeks. Canada provides lower wage replacement rates particularly during maternity leave and has stricter eligibility criteria than in much of Europe; however, the leave durations exceed those in nations such as Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium and Ireland.
The costs of parental leave are fairly modest. Expenses in the Nordic countries averaged 0. These figures changed only slightly by , despite increased generosity of the programs in some countries, to between 0. For example, the United States spent 7. Some European nations also use these policies in an effort to increase gender equity and raise fertility. Parental leave permits employees to take time off work after the birth or adoption of a child, without having to change jobs. As a result, such policies may increase job continuity and help parents retain use of skills or knowledge specific to the pre-birth employer.
This potentially enhances productivity and may result in better long-term earnings and career advancement. Other potential benefits include lower stress due to reduced uncertainty about future employment. However, such results are by no means certain. For example, long leaves may cause human capital to depreciate, reducing productivity and wages. With extended entitlements, employers might be less likely to employ groups with high propensities to use leave or reduce the costs of these absences by cutting training.
Proponents of leave entitlements believe that these policies will also enhance the health and long-term development of children by providing parents more time to invest during the critical first years of life. Although the theoretical rationale for such benefits seems clear notwithstanding the possibility that the gains could be offset if leave rights lower earnings these issues are even more challenging to study, because potential benefits are difficult to measure in most large-scale data sets and may not strongly manifest until many years after birth.
The remainder of this section describes the current state-of-knowledge on the consequences of parental leave policies, with attention again paid to evidence from Western Europe and Canada, as well as from the U. An explicit aim of leave policies is to increase the ability of parents to spend time at home with young children. Such efforts appear successful. Extensions of rights to highly-paid leave delay the post-birth reemployment of mothers. Data from a wide variety of countries — including Canada, Britain, Germany and Scandinavia — shows that many women return to jobs precisely when paid leave ends.
Studies examining periods ending shortly after enactment of the FMLA, or prior state mandates, often find no change in leave-taking or small but statistically insignificant positive effects. Leave entitlements that are highly paid and of short or intermediate duration also appear to increase long-run employment. In a study using data from to for nine European countries, paid leave rights were associated with a 3 to 4 percent rise in female employment. Direct evidence from Canada and Britain shows that the enactment of fairly brief 17 to 18 week paid entitlements enhance job continuity, with some effect found in the United States for even shorter week unpaid leaves.
The effects of rights to extended parental leaves are less obvious, since the benefits of improved job continuity may be offset by depreciation of human capital during lengthy periods away from jobs. Data from the European study described above ended in , when leave rights were often much shorter than those currently mandated, so that the results may not generalize to the consequences of more recent leave extensions. Two studies suggest that they are associated with small sometimes statistically insignificant increases in female employment, while a third argues that enactment of the FMLA led to reductions in the labor force participation of mothers with young children.
One early investigation suggests that the family gap was largely eliminated in the United States and Great Britain for mothers of infants who utilized parental leave and then returned to their pre-birth employer. European investigations usually find either no effect or wage gains from short or moderate durations of paid leave. In the nine-nation study mentioned above, earnings were unaffected by rights to brief leaves but with a small wage small penalty for lengthy beyond five or six month entitlements.
Ambiguous evidence is also obtained from single country studies of rights to lengthy leaves. Research examining policy changes in Sweden, Germany, and Austria finds that women's wages are largely unaffected. Research on Sweden suggests that such concerns may be justified in the case of lengthy leave entitlements. Until recently, there have been few high quality analyses of whether parental leave yields health benefits, for mothers or children, or positively affects the longer-term developmental outcomes of the latter.
One of the first studies using more sophisticated methods, examined data for 16 European nations, from to period, and found that paid parental leave entitlements were associated with decreases in infant and young child mortality, with the largest drops in post-neonatal deaths those during the second through twelfth month of life , where parental involvement might be anticipated to have the strongest effect. A follow-up study, that expanded the sample to 18 nations and the time period through , obtained similar results, plus evidence of reductions in low-weight births.
Parental leave might benefit child health because it increases breastfeeding. Such an effect was found from the extension of Canadian leave rights from around six months to one year. The availability of comprehensive administrative data for individuals starting at birth and sometimes continuing through adulthood has permitted particularly innovative research on how leave entitlements in Norway, Germany, Denmark and Sweden are related to child educational and subsequent labor market outcomes. However, extensions of the somewhat shorter albeit generally paid time off work they do examine may be particularly relevant in the U.
This research typically finds either no effect or modest benefits of parental leave on long-run school performance, educational attainment, or subsequent labor market outcomes. Parental leave entitlements have also sometimes been expanded in hopes of raising fertility or slowing its decline.
Evidence from the Scandinavian countries and Austria suggests that these efforts meet with some success. However, the relatively modest leave entitlements that might be realistically considered for this country would be unlikely to have much effect. A reasonable reading of the existing research is that U.
Parental leave expansions that are not extremely long are also generally associated with either no effect or slight increases in the relative earnings of mothers, as well as gains in maternal and child health and longer-term outcomes for children. However, the size of these benefits is difficult to ascertain because of formidable challenges in estimating causal effects, potential differences across specific policies, and the likelihood that leave rights are only one among many types of work-family policies. It seems likely that moderate extensions of existing U. Lengthy paid leaves are much less likely to be implemented in the United States and the consequences of doing so would be less certain.
In particular, rights to take a year or more off work may well be associated with reductions in maternal earnings and possibly with increased occupational segregation, as employers try to limit that adjustment difficulties associated with supplying lengthy leaves. The supply and financing of ECEC services in the United States is primarily a private responsibility and presents formidable challenges to many families. In , 63 percent of U. Almost 90 percent of children with employed mothers received care from someone else although fathers were the primary caregivers about one-sixth of the time with multiple arrangements used for 25 percent.
Preschool-aged children averaged about 19 hours per week in care if their mother did not work versus 35 hours weekly if she did. In , families spent an average of 4. On the other hand, 10 5 percent of such families devoted at least one-sixth one-quarter of their income to child care. The expenditure share was twice as large for sole-parent than two-parent households 7. It fell with income, but not by as much as might be expected from 6. First, families with nonemployed parents have lower incomes but also use less paid care.
However, high child care costs may provide one reason why the parent does not work. Second, poorer families more often use free or cheap modes of nonparental care and pay lower rates within modes.
Finally, low-income parents are more likely to receive subsidized care. The federal government has played a limited but gradually increasing role in supporting early childhood education and care. Probably best known is Head Start , which has operated since to provide compensatory education and other services to low-income primarily below poverty line or receiving welfare assistance and disabled pre-school children. Four-fifths of program costs are paid directly to local public and private service providers, with the remainder taking the form of local match or in-kind contributions.
Services can be full-time or part-time. However, Head Start serves a small fraction of those economically eligible suggesting that its reach is limited, even among the low-income population. Formally implemented in , the CCDF consolidated several previously existing child care programs. It grew rapidly through but with relatively stable nominal funding and so falling in real terms since then.
Subsidies cannot be obtained by children in families whose income exceeds 85 percent of the State median income; in practice the actual thresholds are usually considerably lower e. The program serves around 1. Parents have substantial choice regarding the setting in which subsidized care occurs: Eighty-nine percent of subsidies take the form of vouchers or cash.
States are allowed to establish payment rates within Federal guidelines and most families pay for a portion of the care on a sliding basis. A substantial share of preschool-age children in low income families have access to subsidized child care through one of the aforementioned programs — 51 percent of poor and 28 percent of income-eligible for CCDF subsidies non-poor year olds received subsidized care through the CCDF, TANF or SSBG programs in However, coverage rates fall rapidly for families with incomes above the poverty level and the required copayments imply that even those subsidized often devote a substantial portion of their incomes to child care.
States have attempted to fill some of these gaps through pre-kindergarten pre-K programs. Thirty-eight states provided such services, in , to over one million 4-year olds and , 3-year olds The percentage of three and four year olds served has trended upwards from 3 and 14 percent of these age groups in but this growth has recently slowed or reversed in many states.
Services can be received in a variety of venues, with about one-third of children in private programs. Pre-K is typically received five days per week during the academic year but with substantial local variation — facilities operate less than five days per week in around one-third of states. However, even in these cases, most employed parents will need to use additional care arrangements.
Tax policies assist to some families in paying for child care. These provisions tend to provide the greatest benefits to high-income families, who have the largest marginal tax rates and probabilities of being offered flexible spending plans. Families must generally choose between the child care tax credit or flexible spending plans, because income sheltered through the latter must be excluded when calculating the tax credit.
The average quality of child care in the U.
Reforms in childcare and parental leave policies in France and Germany: first led the European Union in its efforts to provide childcare and benefits aimed at in welfare and family policy models are deeply entrenched and still influence. PDF | Since the s, dramatic changes in German family policy have of these policies and whether they have achieved their desired effects on . some kind of harmonisation in social policies within the European Union?.
Evaluation of the process quality of care received in nine states revealed that just 9 percent of month old children observed between and generally received positive caregiving, while 61 percent rarely or never did. ECEC arrangements in the comparison nations, while heterogeneous, can often be usefully separated into the periods before and after the third birthday. Starting at age three, educational skills receive more emphasis, often in preschools, and institutional responsibility for care usually shifts from the social insurance to educational system.
Public provision and payment generally becomes nearly universal at some point during this later period, although financial participation by families is still often required. Somewhat exceptional is the Nordic countries use of an integrated and nearly universal ECEC system, where care starts after the end of parental leave generally around age one or two and continues with an increasingly educationally oriented component until a relatively late 7-year old school entry. ECEC spending is high in these countries —around one percent of GDP for children aged 0 to 5 in Denmark, Iceland and Sweden — with especially large expenditures during the first three years of life.
One reason is that care facilities are open long hours — around eleven hours per day, year-round. Another is that these nations have the most highly trained childcare workers, with a university degree usually required. By contrast, training levels are typically lower in other countries for infant and toddler caregivers than for those caring for older children in preschool settings.
France, Belgium and Italy provide fewer services during the first three years but formal care becomes nearly universal and extensive by age three. No non-parental child care is measured in except in France and in the US and refers to families without a usual child care arrangement during a typical week. Early Childhood Education and Care. The first column shows public ECEC spending on year olds. Public spending per child is in U. Net child care costs refer to for full-time formal care of children aged 2 or 3; and are defined as total fees minus cash benefits, rebates and tax concessions measured as a percentage of family income.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Gender roles in continental countries —like Germany, Austria and the Netherlands — are fairly traditional in that mothers provide a large majority of care to young children. As a result, relatively few infants or toddlers are regularly placed in non-parental settings, particularly in formal modes, and when this is done it is for relatively few hours. Public ECEC spending is therefore limited during the first three years but becomes more generous thereafter. Universal entitlements to preschool begin at age three or four but the programs are often only part-day, or involve long two-hour lunch breaks or closures on some weekday afternoons, making it difficult for parents to work full-time without alternative sources of care.
Care arrangements during the first three years of life are often integrated with parental leave rights, such that lengthier leaves imply less extensive use of nonparental care. For example, Finland combines long durations of highly paid parental leave with minimal support for publicly financed early child care, whereas Denmark provides shorter leave but higher rates of child care coverage. Figure 1 further illustrates how lengthy paid leaves are typically associated with reductions in formal care utilization and increased exclusive reliance on parents for regular child care.
The solid line indicates the linear regression estimate of the predicted relationship. Entitlements to universal early education occur relatively late and three or four year olds are comparatively infrequently placed in formal care. Public ECEC spending is limited in these countries, particularly during the first three years, with narrowly focused tax deductions or credits playing a more prominent role.
However, Great Britain, and to a lesser extent some of the other countries, are moving towards the more typical European system where educationally-oriented preschool is common and inexpensive beginning around age three. ECEC in the U. First, public investment during the first three year of life is smaller, in absolute terms or as a percentage of GDP, than in any of the comparison countries the most similar being Germany and the Netherlands.
Second, the United States has the lowest enrollment in formal care by five year olds and among the smallest for four year olds, suggesting continuing challenges for many working families during these years, as well as possible negative consequences for children not receiving educationally-oriented care at these ages. A large body of U. Virtually all studies indicate that higher prices reduce labor supply, although the predicted magnitudes differ substantially. Two reviews of research conducted prior to suggest that child care cost elasticities of maternal employment range from 0 to slightly over Research undertaken during the last decade, which frequently examines the post-welfare reform period, continues to provide disparate estimates of child care cost elasticities, within the range discussed above.
Nevertheless, almost all studies indicate that lower child care costs promote maternal work, particularly full-time employment, especially for single mothers and those with young children or relatively high child care expenses. The aforementioned investigations may not fully indicate the effects of direct government subsidies, since families may treat these differently from other sources of child care cost reductions. In particular, the probability that single mothers work and utilize center-based care rises while rates of non-employment or employment combined with the use of informal child care falls.
An analysis of 19 OECD countries predicts that raising public child care expenditures from the sample average to the level in Denmark — the highest of the nations analyzed — would increase the labor force participation rates of year old women by 4. Universal ECEC entitlements also appear to raise maternal labor supply in many situations. However, ECEC service expansions, particularly those aimed at younger children, may not always have this effect. The provision of free pre-kindergarten services to four year olds in Georgia and Oklahoma had little impact on maternal employment; nor did a Norwegian reform, during the mids, that dramatically increased the availability of heavily subsidized child care slots for three to six year olds.
Whether or not this is desirable depends on relative costs and benefits of different modes of ECEC. The consequences of ECEC policies for related to child health, cognitive and social development cannot be completed separated from those of parental leave policies or early parental employment. For this reason, the discussion below largely abstracts from the infancy period, where most studies suggest negative consequences of maternal job-holding or long work hours.
Put simply, high quality care mitigates any negative effects and enhances positive consequences of ECEC. Since these are unlikely to be replicated in broad nationwide or state-level interventions, they are not elaborated upon. Formal ECEC received immediately before kindergarten appears to promote school readiness. Children, particularly those who are disadvantaged, attending prekindergarten in the year before formal schooling arrive with better math and reading skills, although some of these gains may be transitory or offset by later compensatory education targeting less prepared children.
ECEC has mixed and generally modest effects on child health and safety. Early exposure to nonparental care i. Research on other countries indicates diverse consequences of establishing or expanding formal child care programs. The previously described provision of almost free universal care to preschool-age children in Quebec was associated with increased behavior problems among two and three year olds.
Expensive and presumably high quality care was provided in the two Scandinavian countries, whereas the Quebec expansion largely consisted of probably lower quality home-based care, often supplied to very young children. There is more uncertainty about the overall effects of ECEC policies than for those related to parental and maternity leave. One reason for this is because the policies themselves are so diverse, providing substantial variation in the types of services provided or subsidized, the ages of the children covered, and the modes in which the care occurs. A second is because it is difficult to know which outcomes are of key interest e.
That said, it seems clear that new U.
The answer is not entirely obvious. France, Belgium and Italy provide fewer services during the first three years but formal care becomes nearly universal and extensive by age three. For example, reforms to the U. In , 63 percent of U. Net child care costs refer to for full-time formal care of children aged 2 or 3; and are defined as total fees minus cash benefits, rebates and tax concessions measured as a percentage of family income. Destatis, and Statistisches Bundesamt: Such public financing can be provided through either broadly distributed payroll taxes or general revenues.
From the perspective of children, the arguments for expanding ECEC policies are strongest for those focused on those who are disadvantaged toddlers or approaching school entry. Many other countries have implemented or moved in the direction of providing universal rights to public pre-kindergarten. We need first therefore to examine the differing paths down which family policy has evolved over the years in the two countries.
Abrahamson , in his case-study of four European cities located in Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, argued that past differences in welfare and family policy models are deeply entrenched and still influence attitudes and behaviour in everyday life.
It is now possible to update and consider with the benefit of some hindsight the consequences of these changes while demonstrating their relationship to the contemporary dynamics of the workplace and how these are reflected in the attitudes of parents toward current reconciliation policies. Along this line, Himmelweit Thus, in order to fully capture the meaning, scope and impact of reforms we must place them within their wider institutional, economic and cultural context. Learning is indicated when policy changes are the result of such a process.
This theoretical approach provides a useful framework with which to analyze the different approaches taken by France and Germany in the creation of a coherent and more comprehensive family policy. To facilitate a deeper understanding of the way family policies have evolved in France and Germany since the s we drew upon a diverse range of both qualitative and quantitative data: Further analysis of these systems was conducted by making use of databases provided by Eurostat and the OECD;.
Official documents and reports concerning the progress of reforms, and the laws and regulations associated with these, were the object of our investigations;. In France this was unnecessary as the attitudes of political, social and economic actors have been followed and analysed for a considerable period.
These increases were made following decisions at the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe Bundesverfassungsgericht in and chart 1. For parents of three or more children however France provides a more generous package. Additionally, in Germany as in France, the taxation system still favours married couples where only one of the spouses is in paid work though in Germany parents can choose between joint and individual taxation. That this has patently failed to occur should come as less of a surprise if we take a broader perspective and move beyond the system of cash transfers to consider the overall childcare package, including benefits in-kind, where France remains far more generous.
Eurostat, Statistics Database, However, despite significant German improvements in this area since the turn of the millennium and a law passed in see pp. These and other measures go some way toward offering an explanation for the persistent gap that exists between the two countries when measuring the overall provision of childcare and services for working parents. Despite some evidence of convergence between the two countries differences remain striking in respect to level of supply; modes of governance; opening hours; patterns of provision; funding; and the division of responsibility for care between the state, the market and the family.
To compensate for years of neglect the state agreed to subsidise local authorities in order to ensure that the provisions of the new law were carried out. As outlined by Meyer The question of care for infants aged less than 3 years was conveniently pushed to one side and forgotten until recent years. In order to challenge previously held assumptions on parental responsibilities the instrument settings of family leave policies were softened and made more flexible in Parents were in most cases given permission to work part-time up to 30 hours per week during parental leave whereas previously it had been limited to The system for calculating the levels of the childrearing benefit remained unchanged however and continued to be income related and rather modest.
Passage of these measures was greatly eased by the support of leaders in the private sector who were struggling to find qualified personnel and needed new incentives to recruit and retain qualified staff. Drafted into law and effective from January local authorities are now responsible for providing childcare facilities to all children under 3 whose parents are working, undergoing professional training, or as the need arose by the year Roughly a third of this care will be provided by registered child minders as they represent a less expensive option than the construction of more childcare facilities.
The income earned from this work is taken into account when calculating the amount of the parental allowance. They could for example share the time during which they receive the benefit either simultaneously in which case each would receive seven months parental leave or successively with one parent following the other. Instead of 12 months, the period of payment may be spread over 24 months plus 4 months if the other parent takes it up but the monthly benefit level is reduced so that the overall payment remains the same.
With permission from the employer one year of the leave can be deferred to be used when the child is between the ages of 3 and 8. One of the primary goals of these measures is to eliminate the financial challenges many women must face when choosing between their career and motherhood. Indeed, the assumption is that many career-oriented women avoid motherhood altogether as it would involve such a large loss of income Spiess and Wrohlich, thus every effort is made to make the transition back to professional life as smooth as possible. Over time, and especially since the s, this trend has only accelerated Fagnani, The government hoped to encourage families with children to create employment and at the same time bring more domestic workers into the formal economy.
This allowance, rather modest and paid at a flat rate is received for up to six months after maternity or paternity leave but can be extended to 3 years when there are two or more children present. The aim of this adjustment was both to limit expenditures and to reduce the time spent by mothers outside the labour market. Additionally, the proportion of the CRB paid to parents who choose to work part-time has gone up but this amount remains lower than the amount paid to those who stop working completely.
This financial incentive has proven its efficiency and has sharply increased the number of recipients working part-time while receiving the benefit.
In addition, and in contrast to Germany, the issue of gender equality remains low on the family policy agenda despite modest moves towards a more egalitarian gender model. This new measure was a runaway success and more than three-quarters of fathers took advantage of the new benefit. Despite steadily rising levels of state support for families during the s fertility levels have remained stubbornly low see pp. Drawing from the experiences of Sweden and France Bothfeld, ; Erler, ; Fagnani and Math, — two countries that have successfully combined high fertility with high rates of employment for mothers Morgan, — policymakers were able to reach political consensus over the necessity for comprehensive changes in German reconciliation policies.
Additionally, a burgeoning low wage service sector was also in desperate need of staff and again it was hoped that women could help make up the shortfall. In acknowledgement of this untapped potential, employer organisations gave their full backing to the Family Ministry, which was led by Renate Schmidt SPD from to Her successor Ursula von der Leyen CDU has continued the policies initiated by her predecessor despite her conservative party affiliation and has benefited from the unconditional backing of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
While decisions taken by the Ministry were often the targets of virulent criticism employers continued to give their unwavering support. Further impetus for change came in in the form of the results of an OECD investigation into the educational performance of its member countries. Germany was effectively placed 21st out of 32 countries and in the ensuing media firestorm the system of early childhood education was being held to account for these unsettling results.
Contained within the report were recommendations on the importance of a public system of early childhood care for the socialization and development of children which called into question the very foundations of German family policy. According to the social norms in place at that time it was taken for granted that the most positive environment for children was at home with their mother.
Whether the steps taken have been successful will be examined in the next section and we must further take into account the fact that German salaries declined between and by —0. As far as individualized childcare arrangements are concerned, i. However, local authorities, especially municipalities, are left with some margin for manoeuvre in the provision and development of childcare services. In the states of the former-GDR, where prior to unification the childcare infrastructure was extensive and widespread, the number of places on offer has in fact declined as a result of both increases in female unemployment and the closure of enterprises that had previously provided childcare facilities to employees.
Despite a decrease in the number of births per year — down from , in to , in — provision remains far from adequate. This penury has been exacerbated by the current economic crisis and its effect on the public finances of local authorities who are responsible for a third of all construction costs — the rest being provided by state and federal funds — related to childcare facilities.
Reforms in the pedagogical foundations of early childhood education along with recent negotiations over salary increases for childcare staff threaten to slow down even further the expansion of suitable early childcare provision Muehler, Because of the head start provided by its long tradition of benevolence in childcare provision, France has continued to multiply the options available to parents of young children creating an ever widening distance between the two countries in the domain of family policy.
Destatis, and Statistisches Bundesamt: Statistisches Jahrbuch, and Statistisches Bundesamt, , http: Between and the number of places made available to children in such arrangements rose 2.