Who uses early childhood education and care services? Comparing socioeconomic selection across five western policy contexts

International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy

Table 1 Key policy elements across countries at the time of the study

Policy element	UK	USA	Neth	Can	Nor
At least 6 months paid maternity/parental leave				✓	✓
Universal^a subsidies for at least part-time ECEC in early childhood	✓		✓	✓	✓
Universal^a subsidies for center-based ECEC in early childhood	✓		✓		✓
Universal^a subsidies with reduced out-of-pocket costs for low-income families			✓	✓^d	✓^d
Universal^a subsidies with reduced out-of-pocket costs for second or subsequent child			✓		✓^d
Mandatory employment for welfare recipient single parents in early childhood		✓			✓
Public expenditures on ECEC (ages 0–6) in % of GDP^b	.50	.48	.45	.25^c	1.70

A check mark (✓) indicates that the policy element was available in that country for study participants
^aUniversal indicates available to all children of a certain age group, regardless of family income or parental working status
^bData are from a survey sent by the OECD to country authorities in 2004 (OECD 2006)
^cFor the province of Quebec, expenditures were .40% of GDP
^dApplicable to Early Childhood only