Class politics in the sandbox? An analysis of the socio‐economic determinants of preferences towards public spending and parental fees for childcare

Abstract

This article analyses the socioeconomic determinants of public preferences towards public spending and parental fees for childcare and how they are conditioned by institutional contexts. Previous studies of childcare policy preferences have focused on attitudes regarding the provision of care. However, when it comes to questions of financing, we know astonishingly little about how supportive individuals actually are of expanding preschool early childhood education and care, and how support varies across different socioeconomic groups in society. This is an important research gap because childcare provision and how it is financed have redistributive implications, which vary depending on the institutional design of childcare policy. Using novel and unique survey data on childcare preferences from eight European countries, we argue and show that preferences towards expanding childcare are more contested than it is often assumed. The institutional structure of childcare shapes how income matters for preferences towards how much should be spent and how provision should be financed. Where access to childcare is socially stratified, the poor and the rich develop different preferences towards either increasing public spending or reducing parental fees in order to improve their access to

An emerging populist welfare paradigm? How populist radical right‐wing parties are reshaping the welfare state

“…The Social Democratic parties, in the mid‐90s, start promoting a Social Investment logic to welfare expenditure. While the Social Investment paradigm is aligned with welfare attitudes of the Western‐European middle‐class (Gingrich & Häusermann, 2015; Neimanns & Busemeyer, 2021), a significant part of the working class remains in favor of the Protectionist welfare paradigm (see Enggist & Pinggera, 2022 for the reasoning behind these welfare preferences). As a result, the Social Democratic parties now primarily find their support among middle‐class voters, whereas working‐class voters have come to support PRRPs (Bornschier & Kriesi, 2012; Gingrich & Häusermann, 2015; Jylhä et al, 2019; Oesch, 2008).…”

Needs or obligations? The influence of childcare infrastructure and support norms on grandparents’ labour market participation

“…Need is strongly defined by the (existence or lack of a) formal childcare infrastructure (Aassve et al, 2012; Igel and Szydlik, 2011). Public childcare has been on the rise, as it constitutes an important social investment strategy with the aim to increase educational chances and decrease gender inequalities in labour market participation (Neimanns, 2017; Saraceno, 2017). However, formal childcare provision sharply differs between European welfare systems according to its availability, costs and flexibility.…”

Evaluating the response effort and data quality of established political solidarity measures: a pre-registered experimental test in an online survey of the German adult resident population in 2021

“…Recently, efforts have been made to expand the types of welfare state services towards which respondents’ attitudes are measured. This is done, for example, by including survey questions on Early Childhood Education policy areas (Neimanns and Busemeyer 2021 ), confronting respondents with trade-offs between policy areas (Busemeyer and Garritzmann 2017 ), presenting respondents complex, multidimensional vignettes (Gallego and Marx 2017 ), or having respondents reveal their concrete willingness to pay for certain policy reforms (Boeri et al 2001 ). There is thus an uncoordinated effort and abundance of related attempts to measure political solidarities.…”