Consequences of mixed provision of child care: An overview on the German market

Grit Muehler

ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: Universal child care that is available, affordable and of good quality is regarded as a key instrument of a country's social and labor market policy. As full public involvement in the provision of child care is costly, licensing non-public providers can enlarges parental choice and relieve public funds. This paper analyzes the consequences of universal, mixed-market provision of child care for availability and quality by directly comparing public providers to various non-public providers such as welfare organizations, churches and commercial providers. Controlling for regional and socio-demographic differences in participation, results show that non-religious and in particular commercial providers serve the under three-year-olds and respond to the demand for full-day care. Furthermore, they employ more personnel with a tertiary education. Hence, commercial providers can - at least when covering rather low market shares - increase parental choice and contribute to the provision of high-quality child care.

Keywords: universal child care; mixed industry; public and private sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H44 J13 L33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-lab
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:08077r

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