Abstract
Today public child care is primarily regarded as a service for working parents rather than for the child. Its major purpose seems to be to assist parents in balancing work and family life. In this view, child care is part of family policy and a core issue related to gender equality. Anttonen and Sipilä (1996) take this perspective in their comparative analysis of social service systems in Europe. Consequently, they analyse the variations in public policies between countries with respect to different degrees of ‘women-friendliness’. Thereby, almost unavoidably, the Scandinavian pattern becomes the reference and all other countries are analysed with respect to ‘deficits’ compared with this model.
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© 2009 Thomas Bahle
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Bahle, T. (2009). Public Child Care in Europe: Historical Trajectories and New Directions. In: Scheiwe, K., Willekens, H. (eds) Childcare and Preschool Development in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230232778_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230232778_2
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