What drives early childhood education attendance? The role of structural factors and personal beliefs in Germany

The paper investigates which and how characteristics of the family, the child, the context, and personal beliefs are related with attendance in early childhood education (ECE), examining their dynamics across the first three crucial years of children’s life. By relying on the theoretical model developed by Pungello and Kurtz-Costes, we contribute to the literature on selection into ECE by providing (i) a comprehensive framework simultaneously integrating different sets of factors that can influence access to ECE and (ii) an empirical test of their relevance across crucial children’s developmental stages by using recent data from the German National Educational Panel study. Binomial logistic regression models, applied to multiply imputed data, show that the German ECE system remains unequal even after a period of intense reforms. Inequalities begin already at one-year-old, being largest when children are two years old and decreasing at age three. Findings confirm the importance of structural divides linked to children’s social origins and residential area as main drivers of ECE inequalities, especially at two years old. Yet, also mothers’ beliefs play an important role: perceiving formal care as a tool to both support children’s cognitive enrichment and favour their own occupational career increases children’s ECE participation.