Putting the Child-Centred Investment Strategy to the Test: Evidence for the EU27
| Author | Wim Van Lancker |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271301500103 |
| Date | 01 March 2013 |
| Published date | 01 March 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
INVESTMENT STRATEGY TO THE TEST:
EVIDENCE FOR THE EU27
Wim Van Lancker*
Abstract
Under the social investment paradigm, a child-centred investment strategy has been
developed. Th
e mainstay of such a strategy is the provision of childcare services,
which are expected to increase maternal employment rates, further children’s
human capital and mitigate social inequalities in early life. In this article, I critically
assess the child-centred investment strategy and question whether childcare services
in European countries are, in their current state, up to the task of producing the
anticipated benefi ts. Th
e argument I develop is fairly simple: in order to be eff ective,
childcare services should be provided for all social groups, and in particular for
children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Drawing on recent EU-SILC data, I show
that in all but one country this condition is not met: childcare services are oft en taken
up at low or moderate levels, and children from low-income families use them to a
much lesser extent than those from high-income families. In order to overcome these
childcare defi cits, countries should pursue a consistent investment strategy which
entails increasing both the supply of childcare and employment opportunities for all
social groups. Th
is will require huge budgetary eff orts for most member states.
Keywords: childcare; child-centred investment strategy; ECEC; European Union ;
inequality; social investment
*
Wim Van Lancker is affi
liated with the Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, Faculty of Political
and Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, Sint Jacobstraat 2, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium; tel: +32 3
265 53 97; e-mail: Wim.VanLancker@ua.ac.be.
Th
is paper was the joint winner of the Intersentia/EJSS prize for the best previously unpublished
paper presented at the 2012 FISS Conference held in Sigtuna, Sweden. Th
e author would like to
thank Bérénice Storms, Lutgard Vrints, Michel Vandenbroeck, Frank Vandenbroucke, two
anonymous referees and the participants of the FISS Conference for their valuable comments and
suggestions.
4
Intersentia
Putting the Child-Centred Investment Strategy to the Test
1. INTRODUCTION
Th
e social, political and economic environment in which European welfare states
have to operate has changed dramatically since the oil crisis of 1973, which is
considered a major turning point in the transformation of industrial societies into
post-industrial societies. Interestingly however, prima facie evidence suggests that
welfare states have been remarkably robust, ‘immovable objects’, even, in these past
four decades. Th
is certainly appears to be the case if their evolution during this period
is compared with the welfare state transformations that occurred in the ‘golden’ post-
war period (Pierson 1998). Th
e picture of the welfare state as a ‘frozen landscape’ is
at best only a partial truth, however, because there have been important changes in
the traditional welfare settlement in qualitative terms, both at the level of policies
and at the level of ideas. Governments began to rethink prevailing (social) policy
paradigms and recalibrated their social welfare programmes to meet the new risks
and realities stemming from profound changes such as economic globalisation and
international competition, demographic changes, the shift from manufacturing to
service employment, changing family relationships and the massive entry of women
into the labour market, and new migratory fl ows.1 Incrementally at fi rst, but more
explicitly since the mid-1990s, a common focus on increasing employment, human
capital investment and cost containment has been developed, underpinned by
European discourse and policy (Cantillon 2011; Hemerijck 2011a). Th
ese qualitative
changes have been designated as the ‘social investment turn’ in social policy (Esping-
Andersen et al. 2002). Th
is ‘social investment perspective’ is at present the dominant
scholarly paradigm for making sense of the current welfare settlement.
Basically, the core idea underlying social investment is that governments should
prepare people for the changed employment circumstances in post-industrial labour
markets. While social policy traditionally aimed to protect people from the market,
the idea is now to ‘empower’ people in order to integrate them into the market (Jenson
and Saint-Martin 2003). Th
e mainstay of such a strategy is human capital investment,
giving citizens the opportunity to grasp labour market opportunities themselves,
rather than relying on passive cash transfers to repair damage done by the market.
In sum, social policy ought to invest in people in order to make them resilient and
enhance their capacity to grab the available opportunities in a changed labour market,
before they become dependent on benefi ts (Cantillon and Van Lancker 2012).2
1
Summarising forty years of societal transformation and its impact on risk structures in an
exhaustive and balanced way is an exercise riddled with diffi
culties and most likely a mission
impossible. Hence, I refer the interested reader to Bonoli (2005); Esping-Andersen et al. (2002);
Hemerijck (2011b); Jenson (2009); Morel et al. (2012); and Taylor-Gooby (2004) for further reading
on the welfare state transformations, new social risks and the social investment paradigm.
2
It should be noted that proponents of the social investment idea, such as Esping-Andersen, insist
that social investment is only one part of the welfare settlement and that an adequate income is a
precondition for any longer-term investment strategy. In this view, social investment and social
protection are mutually reinforcing (Vandenbroucke and Vleminckx 2011).
European Journal of Social Security, Volume 15 (2013), No. 1
5
Wim Van Lancker
In this respect, children and childhood are key to any successful investment strategy,
not only because the sustainability of the welfare state hinges on the number and
productivity of future taxpayers, a point emphasised by Vandenbroucke et al. (2011),
but also, and maybe foremost, because inequalities in childhood pose a real threat to
the accumulation of human capital and are the root cause of unequal opportunities
in the labour market and later life. To quote Esping-Andersen in his highly infl uential
contribution on this issue, a child-centred investment strategy ‘must be a centre-piece
of any policy for social inclusion’ (Esping-Andersen et al. 2002: 30). Th
e linchpin of
such a strategy is the provision of high-quality early childhood education and care
(hereaft er ‘childcare’). Th
e idea is that childcare services not only help to achieve
social inclusion through the labour market, by allowing mothers of young children to
engage in paid employment and balance their work and family duties, but also further
the accumulation of human capital of children by providing them with a high-quality
and stimulating environment. Both dimensions should be particularly benefi cial for
children from disadvantaged backgrounds, ultimately breaking the intergenerational
chain of poverty. Th
e child-centred investment strategy is heavily infl uenced by the
assumption that public investments early on yield signifi cant returns in later life in
forgone benefi ts and reduced crime rates (Carneiro and Heckman 2003).
Th
e idea of investment-through-childcare is not a mere academic exercise,
but impacts on real-life policymaking. Th
e need to increase childcare provision is
propagated by infl uential international organisations such as UNICEF (2008) and the
OECD (2001, 2006, 2011), and is also prominently on the European agenda. At the
Barcelona Summit in 2002 as part of the European Employment Strategy (European
Council 2002), European member states adopted explicit childcare targets to provide
childcare by 2010 to at least 33 per cent of children under 3 years old, and to at least 90 per
cent of children between the age of 3 and mandatory school age. At present, for the EU,
childcare is seen as a means to reach the EU2020 targets for employment, early school
leaving, and poverty (Van Lancker and Ghysels 2013), adhering to the investment ideal
of mitigating inequalities and preparing productive citizens. Obviously, not all public
investment in childcare services is necessarily linked to the social investment idea,
but it is safe to say that childcare expansion in the European Union (EU) is at least
informed by the child-centred investment strategy (Morgan 2012).
In this article, I critically assess the child-centred investment strategy and question
whether childcare services in European countries in their current state are up to the
task of producing the anticipated benefi ts. Th
e argument I develop is fairly simple:
in order to be successful, childcare services should be within the reach of children
from disadvantaged families who are expected to benefi t disproportionally, both in
terms of child development and maternal employment. I argue that if that is not the
case, then the child-centred investment strategy, in its current form, is bound to fail.
Using recent comparative data for the EU27, I aim to shed light on this issue and to
explore some tentative explanations which may ultimately provide valuable lessons
for European policymakers.
6
Intersentia
Putting the Child-Centred Investment Strategy to the Test
In the following section, I discuss the basics of the child-centred investment
strategy, further...
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