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Who reaps the benefits? The social distribution of public childcare in Sweden and Flanders

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  • Wim Van Lancker
  • Joris Ghysels

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to unravel the social distribution of childcare policies: who benefits from government investment on public childcare? If childcare policies are mainly used by those already working, and (scarce) budgetary resources thus end up with the higher income brackets, genuine concern arises about the distributional consequences of childcare policies on the one hand, and its effectiveness as an instrument to activate mothers with young children into the labour market on the other. Answering this question is a complex endeavour, because one has to simultaneously take into account the (possibly income-differentiated) tariff structure of childcare services and private childcare costs (parental fees), government expenditures (subsidies to childcare providers) and tax concessions. In this contribution, we develop a fine-grained analysis to reveal the distributional impact of public childcare for two countries (Flanders/Belgium and Sweden) already reaching the Barcelona targets for under 3s and interpret the results in a European perspective. We find that, although both cases report high coverage rates, Sweden and Flanders have very different and even opposite distributional outcomes. Both examples provide us with valuable lessons on the redistributive nature of “new risk policies” and the effectiveness of childcare as an instrument of labour market activation.

Suggested Citation

  • Wim Van Lancker & Joris Ghysels, 2011. "Who reaps the benefits? The social distribution of public childcare in Sweden and Flanders," Working Papers 1106, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    • Handle: RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1106
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    2. Verónica Amarante & Maira Colacce & Victoria Tenenbaum, 2019. "The National Care System in Uruguay: Who Benefits and Who Pays?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(S1), pages 97-122, December.
    3. Wim Van Lancker, 2013. "Putting the child-centred investment strategy to the test: Evidence for the EU27," Working Papers 1301, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    4. Jonas Wood & Sebastian Klüsener & Karel Neels & Mikko Myrskylä, 2017. "Is a positive link between human development and fertility attainable? Insights from the Belgian vanguard case," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2017-014, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    5. Detomasi, Richard, 2018. "Abordaje espacial de políticas públicas: cuidados y primera infancia," Coediciones, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 44168.
    6. Delia Pisoni, 2018. "Between Idealism and Pragmatism: Social Policies and Matthew Effect in Vocational Education and Training for Disadvantaged Youth in Switzerland," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 289-300.
    7. Tine Hufkens & Gerlinde Verbist, 2016. "The distributive effects of work-family life policies in European welfare states," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/09, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
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    9. Sebastian Klüsener & Karel Neels & Michaela R. Kreyenfeld, 2013. "Social norms, family policies, and fertility trends: insights from a comparative study on the German-speaking region in Belgium," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2013-003, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    10. Leen Marynissen & Eleonora Mussino & Jonas Wood & Ann-Zofie Duvander, 2019. "Fathers’ Parental Leave Uptake in Belgium and Sweden: Self-Evident or Subject to Employment Characteristics?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-21, November.
    11. Jonas Wood & Karel Neels, 2019. "Does Mothers’ Parental Leave Uptake Stimulate Continued Employment and Family Formation? Evidence for Belgium," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-24, October.
    12. Tim Rie & Ive Marx, 2013. "GINI Country Report: Growing Inequalities and their Impacts in Belgium," GINI Country Reports belgium, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    13. Wim Van Lancker & Joris Ghysels, 2013. "Great expectations, but how to achieve them? Explaining patterns of inequality in childcare use across 31 developed countries," Working Papers 1305, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    14. Jessen, Jonas & Schmitz, Sophia & Waights, Sevrin, 2020. "Understanding day care enrolment gaps," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    15. Jeroen Horemans, 2016. "The part-time poverty gap across Europe: How institutions affect the way part-time and full-time workers avoid poverty differently," Working Papers 1603, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    16. Verbist, G. (Gerlinde) & Matsaganis, M. (Manos), 2012. "GINI DP 53: The Redistributive Capacity of Services in the EU," GINI Discussion Papers 53, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    17. Wim Van Lancker & Jeroen Horemans, 2017. "Into the Great Wide Unknown: Untangling the Relationship between Childcare Service Use and In-Work Poverty," Working Papers 1704, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    18. Natascha Notten & Daniela Grunow & Ellen Verbakel, 2017. "Social Policies and Families in Stress: Gender and Educational Differences in Work–Family Conflict from a European Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 1281-1305, July.
    19. Jonas Wood & Karel Neels, 2019. "Local Childcare Availability and Dual-Earner Fertility: Variation in Childcare Coverage and Birth Hazards Over Place and Time," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(5), pages 913-937, December.
    20. Verónica Amarante & Maira Colacce & Victoria Tenenbaum, 2019. "The National Care System in Uruguay: Who Benefits and Who Pays?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(S1), pages 97-122, December.
    21. Rense Nieuwenhuis & Ariana Need & Henk Van der Kolk, 2017. "Family Policies, Women’s Earnings, and Relative Inequality Among Households: Trends in 18 OECD Countries from 1981 to 2008," LIS Working papers 599, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

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