Access to formal childcare among families of newly arrived migrants from non-EU countries in France

Abstract

Lower participation of children of immigrants in Early Childhood Education (ECEC) has been documented across many destination countries and increasing their access has become a policy priority. While it is established that families’ socio-economic background account for a large part of these differences, the role of other factors, of which families’ norms and preferences regarding child upbringing, is less clear in explaining these differences. This paper analyses childcare arrangements of immigrant families in France, and more specifically families of migrants from outside of the EU. We use the Longitudinal Survey on the Integration of First-time Arrivals (Elipa 2), representative of third country nationals receiving a first residence permit in France in 2018. Around one fourth of respondents lived with a child under the age of 3 (sample of 1460 children) for which the survey collected the primary caretaker. We examine how families’ socio-economic position and migratory background affect their childcare arrangements using both descriptive and multivariate statistical methods. While low financial resources of immigrant families were the main obstacle in accessing formal childcare arrangements when compared to the general population, there were also important variations within this group. Use of formal childcare varied by family type and country of origin: whereas in the first case they were mainly linked to other family characteristics, in the latter they persisted in multivariate analyses. Disadvantaged families (unemployed/inactive parents, low income, precarious housing conditions) also had lower participation in formal childcare.