Further expansion of elementary education necessary

Statement by EcoAustria Director Monika Köppl-Turyna at an expert hearing in the National Council's Family Affairs Committee on June 2, 2021:

The so-called Barcelona targets of the European Union provide for a massive expansion of childcare facilities for young children up to compulsory school age. While there are sufficient elementary education places for children between the ages of 3 and 5 in Austria due to investments in recent years, this is not the case for children aged 0 to 2. In 2019, just under 23% of children aged 3 and under in Austria were in formal care (full and part-time). This is 10 percentage points below the Barcelona target. In Denmark it was 66%, in the Netherlands 65%. The average of the 27 EU countries is now also above the Barcelona target at 35% and well above the figure for Austria.

In particular, Austria ranks at the bottom when it comes to caring for young children for 30 hours or more. With a rate of 8 percent, Austria is well below the EU average of 21 percent and the frontrunners Denmark and Portugal, where more than half of young children are cared for full-time. At the same time, Austria has the second-highest rate of part-time employment for women in the European Union at 47.1%, which is primarily due to mothers. According to a survey by the European Commission, 57 percent of Austrian mothers of preschool-age children who cite compulsory childcare as the reason for their part-time employment state "no availability of a suitable place" as the main reason for not working full-time.

An overwhelming majority of the literature finds a significant positive influence of the expansion of early childhood education facilities and the labor market participation of mothers. Particularly high effects were found in rural areas or in countries or ethnic groups that traditionally have a lower labor market participation of women. There is consistent evidence that the expansion of childcare primarily benefits women with low and medium qualifications. Single mothers benefit most when formal childcare is characterized by high affordability or comes with additional support.

The existing literature also finds predominantly positive effects on children, both in the short and long term. In the short term, the introduction of early childhood education centers increases the "investment" in children and their development, particularly through more activities at home such as reading. This has a positive impact on learning success in childcare and later at school. There are also other positive social effects, such as better health and nutrition for the children and fewer cases of abuse. In the long term, better participation in the labor market, lower dependency on social welfare, higher educational mobility and lower inequality can be observed. Positive effects on their health and a lower crime rate also go hand in hand with a high level of childcare in the long term. According to the latest calculations by James Heckman, which were recently published, these positive effects even extend over further generations and can be observed in the children of the children in care.

One of the prerequisites for the positive results mentioned above is that childcare must also reach disadvantaged children. Accordingly, the literature shows particularly high effects when the subsidies primarily reach disadvantaged families (such as Head Start in the USA) and are not paid out indiscriminately. Research shows that the use of formal childcare by young children is socially stratified, so that low-income or low-skilled parents in particular are less likely to enrol their children in formal childcare services than better-off families. Key criteria for the success of childcare include: Availability, accessibility, affordability, quality and flexibility. Austria has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the last point in particular - especially with regard to opening hours. Only a quarter of all facilities in Austria meet the so-called VIF criteria, which also include longer opening hours. In Upper Austria, the figure is only 19 percent. Even the so-called "all-day care", which provides for care for just 6 hours a day, is met by just half of the facilities in Tyrol and Vorarlberg. A comparison of the federal states also shows a very strong correlation between the proportion of mothers in full-time employment and the length of opening hours of childcare facilities.

In summary, it can be said that despite the successes of recent years, Austria remains below average in terms of the availability of early childhood education facilities and, in particular, is significantly weaker than comparable countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands or France. Further investment is needed, particularly in the expansion of opening hours and affordability for disadvantaged families, in order to develop the full potential.