Suchergebnisse

AbstractChildcare services are increasingly put forward as one of the most important policy levers to combat poverty and inequality. However, higher income families use childcare services to a much larger extent than lower income families. Almost all European countries increased expenditures on childcare over the past years, but has an ever‐increasing public spending on childcare provision led to more equality in its use? In this article, the relationship between spending and childcare use as well as between spending and inequality in childcare use over the period 2006–12 is empirically analyzed using a random effects model drawing on country‐level panel data (n = 156), derived from the EU‐SILC and OECD SOCX databases. Since governments can spend money in different ways, it is discussed whether a public or a market‐based strategy to subsidize childcare provision is related to more equality. The results suggest that more spending leads to higher levels of childcare use, but not directly to lower levels of inequality. For achieving equity in childcare use, government investment should lead to an expansion of childcare places across the income distribution. The findings allow the formulation of new hypotheses regarding the role of the private market in childcare services provision.

Under the social investment paradigm, a child-centred investment strategy has been developed. The mainstay of such a strategy is the provision of childcare services, which are expected to increase maternal employment rates, further children's human capital and mitigate social inequalities in early life. In this article, I critically assess the child-centred investment strategy and question whether childcare services in European countries are, in their current state, up to the task of producing the anticipated benefits. The argument I develop is fairly simple: in order to be effective, childcare services should be provided for all social groups, and in particular for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Drawing on recent EU-SILC data, I show that in all but one country this condition is not met: childcare services are often taken up at low or moderate levels, and children from low-income families use them to a much lesser extent than those from high-income families. In order to overcome these childcare deficits, countries should pursue a consistent investment strategy which entails increasing both the supply of childcare and employment opportunities for all social groups. This will require huge budgetary efforts for most member states.

Departing from growing concerns about in-work poverty and the proliferation of flexible employment, we investigate the association between temporary employment and poverty in a European comparative perspective. In doing so, we focus specifically on possible gender dimensions, because some are concerned that the impact of flexible employment on income security will be different for men and women and that gender inequality will increase. By means of a logistic multilevel model, we analyse recent EU-SILC data for 24 European countries. The results show that the temporarily employed have a higher poverty risk vis-à-vis permanent workers, mainly caused by lower wages. However, the risk factors to become working poor are similar. The poorly educated, young workers and those living in a single earner household with dependent children have an increased probability to live in poverty, whether they are employed on temporary or permanent basis. Differences between European welfare regimes demonstrate that policy constellations influence the magnitude of these risk factors. Counter-intuitively, temporary working women have a lower poverty risk than their male counterparts. They are better protected because they are more often secondary earners in a dual earning household, while men are more often primary earners. This article advances knowledge on the linkages between temporary employment, economic insecurity and gender differences in European welfare states.