Comparative Perspectives on Childcare Expansion in Germany: Explaining the Persistent East‒West Divide

Explaining subnational variations in early childhood education and care. A fuzzy‐set analysis of the Italian case

“…By contrast, Nordic countries, where early childcare policies developed already since the 1960-1970s, in a phase of WS expansion and legitimacy, full employment, and higher availability of resources, had a comparative advantage in adapting to new social risks. A similar comparative advantage, for specific historical reasons, is found in Eastern Germany (Mätzke, 2018). Similarly, we expect that Italian regions with relatively developed ECEC already in the 1980s had an advantage in further expansion.…”

“…Nonetheless, the results do justice to the complexity of social policy development processes and avoid determinism driven by need, cultural, or economic factors. They help identifying multifaceted patterns of (non‐)expansion, that include factors previously identified as relevant, such as polity and politics (Confalonieri & Canale, ; Fantozzi, ) and institutional legacies (Mätzke, ). At the same time, these findings offer a background and pave the way to further, qualitative, investigations of cases representing different paths to (non‐) ECEC development.…”

Family policy and women's employment outcomes in 45 high‐income countries: A systematic qualitative review of 238 comparative and national studies

“…The issue of access has been analysed also by research work that uses qualitative methods. An example is the recent debate about the use of Sen's capability approach within the realm of family policy (see Ciccia & Sainsbury, 2018;Hobson et al, 2011;Javornik & Kurowska, 2017;Mätzke, 2019;Yerkes & Javornik, 2019).…”

What characteristics of funding, provision and regulation are associated with effective social investment in ECEC in England, France and Germany?

“…The higher levels of childcare provision in the Eastern German Länder are associated with the historically high levels in the former East Germany where the dual breadwinner/state carer cultural model prevailed in contrast to the former West Germany, where low levels of provision were related to the male breadwinner model. Cultural norms and institutional factors continue to be relevant with participation in, and institutional availability of ECEC being higher in the Eastern than Western German Länder (Mätzke, 2019;Author). Indeed, research suggests that federal subsidies have had faster results in the Eastern Länder, where local governmentsunlike those in the Western German Länderwere able to rebuild the institutional model in place prior to reunification (Oliver and Mätzke, 2014).…”