Early Childhood Care
and Education in Welfare Regimes of Europe
Mehmet Fatih Aysan and Asil Ali Özdoğru
In this study, early childhood care and education is
discussed within the welfare regime conceptual framework by using data from the
European Union. According to the current study, although all ten of the
selected countries are members of the European Union and are obliged to fulfill
the same social and economic requirements, early childhood care and education
is generally shaped by the characteristics of their respective welfare regimes.
The Liberal welfare regime is distinguished through the
domination of the market in the management of social risks, modest universal
transfers and social insurance plans, and meanstested social assistance
(Esping-Andersen 1990, 1999). Benefits are highly stratified based on means-tested
and flat-rate assistance for the poor and private pension schemes based on
contributions in working years. This stratification among social groups also
leads to inequalities in this welfare regime.
In contrast to other welfare regimes, the Social Democratic
welfare regime emphasizes the role of the state to provide for its citizens’
social well-being, rather than the market or the family. This group promotes a
high standard of social equality where all people are incorporated under one
universal system.
The Continental European welfare regime has a corporatist
and conservative welfare tradition heavily influenced by the state. The main
characteristics of this regime are the emphasis on the preservation of status
differentials, and the institutionalization of rights attached to social class
rather than citizenship (Esping-Andersen 1990). Given that early childhood
services depend on one’s occupational earnings in such countries. Parallel to
the Southern European welfare regime, gender inequality and high youth
unemployment rates are two important problems of the Continental European
welfare regime. However, this regime produces generous occupational rights and
high pension benefits for its citizens.
In addition to Esping-Andersen’s three-fold typology, the
Southern European cluster (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, emerges as a
distinct fourth group through its unique institutional and social
characteristics (Leibfried 1992; Ferrera 1996; Trifiletti 1999; Gough 2000).
This regime is based on strong familialism, a residual form of social
assistance, a low degree of state intervention in welfare, patronage, universal
health care, and clientelism. The pension structure is dualistic: on the one
hand, pension programs of this group offer one of the most generous pension
benefits for public employees and skilled workers; on the other hand, a great
number of workers, who work in non-standard and temporary jobs (service jobs,
agriculture, and small merchants) lack social security in case of unemployment
and are severely disadvantaged in old age. This dualism also separates the
Southern European welfare regime from the Continental European regime which has
much smaller income variations between high and low income pensioners and much
larger proportion of recipients of relatively higher pension incomes.
OECD (2013; 2014) and EUROSTAT (2009; 2014a; 2014b; 2014c)
data were exploited to make the comparison. While the formal early childhood
education system is more developed and available in the Social Democratic
welfare regime, it is not possible to speak of a common formal care and
educational services especially for the 0-3 age group in the Continental
European and South European welfare regimes. It is claimed that even though the
countries try to pursue the social and economic objectives of the European
Union; they remain dependent on their own welfare regimes in early childhood
care and education. Additionally, formal care and educational services, which
are important social policy tools for individuals to achieve work-life balance,
are discussed for their positive influences on the child and the family, and in
the last part, policy recommendations for early childhood care and education
are offered.
Keywords: Early
Childhood Care and Education, Family, Social Policy, Welfare Regime, Europe
Citation: Aysan, M. F., & Özdoğru, A. A. (2015, May). Early childhood care and education in welfare regimes of Europe. Paper presented at the International Congress on Education for the Future, Ankara, Turkey.
