Childcare Politics: Private Practices & Preferences in the Rich Democracies

• In Event: Economic Policy Preferences

Abstract

Most mothers work in modern rich democracies. For decades, this has been so. But, despite similar needs, beliefs about the government’s role in childcare vary dramatically across the OECD. I detail underappreciated cross-national differences in the politics of childcare, then develop and test an institutional explanation. I argue that current policy shapes citizens’ basic expectations of public or private childcare responsibilities, challenging usual assumptions that popular opinion drives democratic policy outcomes.

To assess my policy feedback claims against self-interest and identity-driven behavioral alternatives, I pair social expenditures data from several dozen advanced democracies over 30 years (1990-2019) with cross-nationally comparable mass beliefs about maternal work, before vs. after school age and relative to fathers, measured in 1994, 2002, & 2012 (ISSP Family & Changing Gender Roles survey II-IV), and detailed opinions about the public/private allocation of childcare responsibilities (2012 ISSP).

Emphasizing differences in the patterning of childcare views and within-country political cleavages expected under each theoretical approach, I find that mass beliefs and parent preferences systematically track qualitative differences in countries’ childcare investments over time.

Working mothers’ genuine childcare needs may not inspire policy demand where the policy infrastructure does not exist. Instead, this research suggests meaningful government investment in public childcare would. The paper concludes with deeper consideration of the United States’ peculiar, persistently private childcare system. Findings speak to the early Biden Administration’s failure to build back better absent a political foundation for government childcare to begin with, while also highlighting substantial opportunities to change Americans’ lives and minds.

Author

• Sophie Jacobson, Columbia University