Growing unequal: child care policies in Italy and the social class divide1
Emmanuele Pavolini (Univ. Macerata) and Marco Arlotti (Università Politecnica delle Marche)
RC 19 Conference– August 2013
PRELIMINARY DRAFT
Please do not quote without the authors permission
1. Introduction
Child care has become increasingly central in the debate about the transformation and the
recalibration of the welfare state. If the welfare state debate until the 1990s was mainly centered
around policy fields such as pensions and unemployment benefits (Esping-Andersen, 1990), in the
more recent years it has started to broaden up, taking into consideration also social care (Anttonen
and Sipilä, 1996). Especially in the last decade the literature on “new social risks” (Taylor-Gooby,
2004) and then the more recent one on “social investment” (Jenson, 2006; Morel, Palier and Palme,
2011) have put at the center of the debate the issue and the relevance of child care for a series of
different reasons, mainly related to the idea that the formal provision of such type of care, on one
side, can help parents (mothers) to conciliate better work and family life, on the other, to improve
the skills of children.
Interestingly the scientific debate on child care has largely ignored one of the dimensions more
studied in the (“old” social risks) debate of the previous decades: the role of social classes. In
particular if recent studies have focused on the “politics” of child care and the role of social classes
(see for instance Bonoli and Reber, 2010; Hieda, 2012), the attention to the impact and to the
distribution among different social classes of child care has not been too much under scrutiny.
The aim of the paper is not only to consider how relevant social class differences are in the access
to child care and how the situation has changed over time, but also what it is the role of the State. In
particular the present article focuses on the Italian case and tries to answer to three questions. Do
children of different social classes have in Italy the same probability to attend formal child care?
What did happen in the last decade in relation to this issue, given the fact that there has been an
expansion of both public and private supply (have differences disappeared or increased?)? What is
the role of public regulation and, in particular, of rationing in shaping class differences in the access
to formal child care?
It should be kept in mind that, looking at Italy from a comparative international perspective, the
Italian care model is still family-based and the diffusion of public services is quite limited
(Saraceno, 2011; Naldini and Saraceno, 2011).
Table 1 reports some data from ISTAT (the Italian Institute of Statistics) on the diffusion of public
and private child care over time. Public coverage reached in 2011 only 14% of children under 3
years old and public and private provision where able to cover only less one child out of five. The
situation has improved from the early 1990s, but the rise in the coverage level is still quite far away
from the target set at the level of European Union.
Table 1. Formal child care coverage in Italy over time (1992-93; 2011)
Public child care coveragea
Public and private child care coverageb
1992*
2011
1993
2011
5.5
14.0
8.0
18.7
a
Istat Survey on social care provision by municipalities
b
Istat Multiscopo survey (1993; 2011)
* Information collected by Centro Nazionale di documentazione e analisi per l’infanzia e l’adolescenza (2010).
Source: Istat (2012).
1
The authors are thankful to a series of colleagues who have given support and critics to the present essay: Marco
Albertini, Gianluca Argentin, Manuela Naldini and Cristina Solera.
1
Section 2 is dedicated to briefly summarize the literature on the issue of child care and to set some
hypothesis that have guided the analysis. Sections 3 illustrates the data and the methodology used.
Section 4 and 5 try to answer to the three questions above.
2. Child care between welfare recalibration, social stratification and State intervention
The literature on the reasons why it would be relevant to foster formal child care and, more
specifically, the Welfare State should do, is based mainly on three grounds: to foster the
conciliation between care and work, especially for women; to improve cognitive and not cognitive
skills among young children; to help the social inclusion of children, especially if coming from
disadvantaged backgrounds.
There is a relatively consistent literature on the relationship between child care provision and the
level of labour market participation of mothers with young children. Apart from few researches
arguing that there is not a significant causal effect between the supply of formal care and the levels
of female participation in the labour market (Cascio, 2009; Hank and Kreynefeld, 2000; Havnes and
Mogstad, 2011a), most studies find that a higher provision of formal child care improves the
capacity of women to access and to maintain an occupation (for example: Baker et al., 2008;
Gelbach, 2002; in relation to the Italian case see: Del Boca, 2002; Del Boca and Vuri, 2006; Del
Boca et al., 2009; Brilli et al., 2011). The provision of public child care should help women to keep
their occupation or to look for another one, when they become mothers, avoiding a (long-term) exit
from the labour market. A larger participation of women to the labour market would have beneficial
effects also in terms of lower levels of households’ economic instability and poverty (Cantillon et
al, 2001; Del Boca, Mencarini and Pasqua, 2012).
In parallel to the debate about the positive effects of public child care on women’s occupation, a
second stream of literature has focused on the relationship between early childhood education and
care. A series of studies coming from cognitive psychology and pedagogy argue and show that early
childhood (below 3-6 years of age) is a fundamental stage in life in order to improve cognitive
capacities and also other not cognitive skills of each individual’s life (self-esteem, sociability, etc.)
(Loeb et al., 2007; Burger, 2010). “Investing” public resources on individuals in this stage of life
can have higher returns than just investing later on (Cunha e Heckman, 2008; Heckman and
Masterov, 2007; Esping-Andersen, 2009). Public child care, if ensuring a good quality of provision,
can foster the acquisition of these skills among pupils (Broberg et al., 1997; Datta Gupta and
Simonsen, 2010; for Italy see Del Boca and Pasqua, 2010; Brilli et al., 2011). A more limited
number of studies has focus on the effects (the “returns”) of this type of investment in adult life,
arguing that a long-term positive effect can be detected (Esping-Andersen, 2009; Havnes e
Mogstad, 2011b; Belsky et al., 2007).
A third stream of research, often intertwined with the previous ones, deals with the positive effects
of public child care on children coming from disadvantaged backgrounds (see for example:
Feinstein, 2003; Love et al., 2003; Votruba-Drzal et al., 2004). Given the fact that a strong
correlation is found between the education level of parents and the cognitive skills of their children
(Esping-Andersen, 2002), the literature on this issue almost unanimously shares the view that child
care helps to reduce the gaps in terms of cognitive developments among children from potentially
difficult backgrounds (migrant families, minorities, etc.) (Barnett and Belfield, 2006; Brilli et al,
2011; Esping-Andersen and Mestres, 2003; Esping-Andersen, 2009; Kamerman et al., 2004;
Leseman, 2009; Van Tuijl and Leseman, 2007; Schober and Spiess, 2012).
These three streams of research on the relationship between (public) child care and its effects on
mothers, children and disadvantaged groups are often coupled with more specific questions relating
to the characteristics of regulation of public intervention in this policy field: OECD (2008), Förster
and Verbist (2012), as well as Naldini and Saraceno (2011) analyse what are the effects of different
2
family policies on households and children, for example in terms of consequences of programs
based on different mixes between cash transfers, services and parental leaves.
Looking in particular at the Italian case, characterized by a medium-to-low level of public provision
coverage, different scholars have tried to link the issue of how rationing works with the possible
positive effects of formal child discussed above. Bosi and Silvestri (2008) study the interaction
between the demand of child care services coming from households and the motivations local
authorities have in fostering the supply of such services. Zollino (2008) analyses similarly the
interaction between demand of public child care services and how supply works. Brilli et al. (2011)
study the effects of public childcare availability in Italy on mothers’ working status and children’s
scholastic achievements, also taking into account rationing in public childcare access.
From a sociological point of view the issue of how rationing works assumes an even broader
significance. As shown already in studies concerning the access to other welfare state programs (see
for instance, in relation to the dynamics of access to social assistance, Saraceno, 2002), there is a
“socio-institutional construction” of the potential beneficiaries of a given policy. The criteria, used
for rationing child care, define (often implicitly) also cognitively who are the children (and
households) who are entitled and “deserve” this type of public provision (as it will be shown in
section 5, looking at the rationing choices adopted by certain Italian municipalities, it is not out of
place to use the naming of “deserving” and “undeserving” children).
The issue of how rationing works becomes even more relevant if we introduce another dimension,
which has been traditionally overlooked in the analysis of how child care works: the belonging to
social classes and the access to formal child care. It is interesting to notice that not too much
attention has been given to the relationship between social classes and access to formal child care.
At least two explanations of this absence can be given. On one side, the debate has focused more on
disadvantaged groups. On the other, instead of focusing on social classes, at least defined in a
sociological way (Goldthorpe, 1992), studies have usually referred to the education level of parents
(see for instance Esping-Andersen, 2009). Only few researches have given attention to social class
and child care. Stefansen and Skogen (2010) and Stefansen and Farstad (2010) have focused on
working class parents, vis à vis middle class parents, and their attitudes toward the enrolment of
their children in formal daycare in Norway. Similar studies were undertaken also by Vincent et al.
(2008) and Vincent and Ball (2007) in relation to the UK. All these studies find distinct classed
patterns both in parents’ choices around childcare and in their views on the role of formal care.
The present essay tries to bring together all these elements and in particular it studies how different
social classes have access to child care. Given the fact that often child care (especially the one
offered by local authorities) has good quality (Bosi and Silvestri, 2008), the paper focuses only
indirectly on the cognitive returns of formal child care: it is more interested in finding out how
much this type of provision helps to re-conciliate care and work for parents depending on the social
class.
At the beginning of the research we had an exploratory goal and only partially precise hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: taking into consideration differences among social classes in terms of cultural
preferences in relation to child care (Stefansen and Skogen, 2010) as well as of participation to the
labour market , we expect that working class children will tend to go less to formal child care than
middle and service class children, both because parents have different preferences and also because
in working class households in Italy it is higher the probability of having mothers not active in the
labour market (Reyneri, 2011).
Hypothesis 2: however an explanation of these social class differences cannot be based only on
cultural preferences and participation to the labour market, but it deals also with how public
regulation (rationing) and coverage to formal child care shape parents’ choices.
3
Hypothesis 3: we expect that an increase in public coverage, as the one that took place in the 2000s,
has a positive effect in reducing class differences in the access to formal child care.
Arguing that it is important to consider public regulation and coverage in order to understand how
class differences work, it does not mean we have a clear hypothesis on how public regulation
effectively shapes these differences. The last part of the paper was more exploratory in the sense of
attempting to look at Italian municipalities, that are in charge of organizing child care, and to see
how the discretionality and autonomy they have in regulation can foster different outcomes in terms
of social class differences in the access to formal child care.
3. Data and methodology used
To study the relationship between social class and access to child care, we have used different types
and sources of data. In section 4, we have used different Istat survey data. In particular we have
used the Indagine Multiscopo “Famiglia e soggetti sociali” (“The Survey on households and social
issues”) for two different years (1998 and 2009), in order to try to answer to the first two questions
of our research: are there social classes whose children attend with more probability child care than
others? What has happened over time to these differences (mainly during the last decade)?
The Indagine Multiscopo “Famiglia e soggetti sociali” can allow us to differentiate between the
access to formal public child care and formal private one, but it does not contain information on the
reasons why parents decide not to send their children to formal child care. If we want to investigate
this specific issue we need to use another Istat survey, Indagine Multiscopo “Vita quotidiana”
(“The Survey on daily living”). The limit of this survey is that it does not differentiate formal public
and private child care, but it has only a general question on child care.
Section 5 is based not on survey data but, instead, on administrative ones, coming directly from a
sample of Italian Municipalities. We have collected information on all 103 Italian Municipalities
that are also province capitals and that have at least 30.000 inhabitants. In particular we have
collected the specific criteria used by Municipalities to rank all the applications for children whose
parents want to send them to public child care. We have synthesized this broad amount of
information and we have focused on the main issues concerning the criteria used for selecting
whose has the priority to access public services (for more detailed information, see section 5).
The unit of analysis in section 4 are children under 3 years old.
The main dependent variable is the type of care adopted by parents for these children. In particular
the dependent variable was build as follows: informal care (at home); formal public care; formal
private care.
The main independent variable is the social class of the child parent(s), as usually measured and
defined in the Italian literature on social mobility and stratification (Cobalti and Schizzerotto,
1993). In particular, given the relevance of self-employment in the Italian labour market, we refer to
four different social classes: the working class; the “petite bourgeoisie” (mainly self-employed
manual workers); the middle class; the service class.
We have used a set of variables in order to control the relationship between social class and the type
of care adopted. In particular, these variables were: the child’s age; the geographical area where the
child lives (Centre-North vs. Southern Italy); three characteristics of the household structure (single
parent vs. couple; number of brothers and sisters the child has; the presence of grand-parents living
in the same city or territory); the working status of the parent(s) (measured by the percentage of
parents present in the household who are employed); the level of education of the parent(s).
We have used mostly multinomial logit regressions models. As it will be clear looking at the tables,
we have only reported the coefficients related to social class and not all the other coefficients. Our
analysis is not an exploratory one (aiming at understanding what are the variables more strongly
associated with different types of child care provision), but it focuses only on the relationship
4
between social class and type of child care provided, controlling for a series of other variables. That
is the reason why the tables do not include information on the coefficients of all the other variables.
4. Social classes and the type of child care
4.1 Which social classes do send their children to formal child care?
Table 2 reports simply how children were cared for in 2009 depending on the social class of their
relatives. A general look at the data tells us that, no matter the social class children belong to, the
majority of them are still informally cared for either by parents or grand-parents. However, quite
relevant differences appear between, on one side, middle class and service class, on the other,
working class and petite bourgeoisie. Around 30% of children belonging to the first group went to
formal child care, whereas this percentage dropped to around 10-12% in the second one.
Table 2. Social class and type of child care provided in Italy (2009) (percent by social class)
Public child care
Private child care
Informal care
Total
Working class
6.4
2.1
91.5
100.0
Petite bourgeoisie
8.4
5.2
86.4
100.0
Middle class
18.0
11.7
70.3
100.0
Service class
14.2
13.4
72.4
100.0
Shifting to multivariate analysis, table 3 reports a set of multinominal logit regressions focusing
only on the value and significance of the RRR ratios related to the social class variables.
The first regression (model 1) is based mainly on the relationship between social class and type of
care, controlling this relationship on the base of the child’s age. It confirms substantially the results
illustrated in table 2 and our hypothesis 1. Middle class and service class households tend to follow
similar behaviors, whereas working class and petite bourgeoisie ones send their children quite less
often to formal child care especially if it is private.
These results confirm, even if we refer to totally different contexts, to what was found in the UK
and Norway (Stefansen and Skogen, 2010; Stefansen and Farstad, 2010; Vincent et al., 2008;
Vincent and Ball, 2007). Due to the fact that we adopt a different methodology than the previous
studies, we can try to better understand these results, by looking at the role of other variables in
influencing the relationship between social class and child care.
In model 2 we have introduced another control variable, related to the area of the country where the
household lives: the results already found in model 1 do not seem to be affected by the geographical
area.
The same applies when we introduce controls related to household characteristics (model 3): the
household type (single parent or a couple), the presence of grandparents and of other children are
relevant in terms of child care choices (not shown here), but they do not affect the relationship
between social class and child care.
The situation changes, but only partially, with model 4: in this model we add as a control the
percentage of workers among the adults present in the household. Once we take into account the
relationship between work and households the difference between petite bourgeoisie and
middle/service class disappears at least for public child care, whereas it remains significant for
working class. These results are interesting because they tell us that a possible relevant explanation
of a different recourse to formal child care among social classes does not hold: in Italy it is well
know that there is a divide in terms of social class in the female participation to the labour market.
In particular mothers with little children, belonging to working class households, work less often
than middle or service class mothers. If child care is organized as a service for conciliation and in
Italy there are differences in terms of women participation to the labour market, the significant
relationship between social class and formal child care choices could have been the result of the
5
different level of presence in the labour market of women belonging of different social classes. This
seems to be partially the case of petite bourgeoisie women with young children, but not for working
class ones.
If the different presence in the labour market cannot explain the relationship between social classes
and the access to formal care, two other possible explanations should be investigated: differences in
cultural values (as, for instance, it is argued by Stefansen and Skogen, 2010; Stefansen and Farstad,
2010; Vincent et al., 2008; Vincent and Ball, 2007); differences in the way public sector priorities
the demand for child care. Unfortunately the database used so far does not contain information
relevant for helping us to answer these questions and we will have to use other databases. Before
doing that, we can use the Istat “Famiglie and Soggetti sociali” micro-data for two last exercises.
Table 3 reports also a model 5 where we controlled our relationship between social class and type
of child care also on the base of education. This regression was mainly exploratory, given the risks
of high multicollinearity between the variables of social class and education: the results reported in
table 3 confirm us that, even after controlling for education, there is a relevant split between the
working class and the other social classes.
Table 3. Multinominal logit regressions on the relationship between social class and type of child
care provided in Italy (2009) (RRR ratios and significance levels reported) (ref. cat. middle class;
base outcome: informal care)
Model 1
(control: child’s
age)
Public child care
Working class
Petite bourg.
Service class
Private child care
Working class
Petite bourg.
Service class
N° cases
Prob > chi2
Log pseudolik.
Pseudo R2
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Model 5
(model 1 + geogr.
(model 2 +
(model 3 + % workers (model 4 +
regions)
household caract.)
in the household) education level)
0.259***
0.400***
0.640
0.267***
0.461**
0.697
0.287***
0.470**
0.691
0.418**
0.638
0.748
0.503*
0.739
0.709
0.180***
0.294***
1.118
1085
0.00
-591.59
0.134
0.182***
0.305***
1.195
1085
0.00
-582.44
0.141
0.194***
0.310***
1.192
1085
0.00
-580.99
0.145
0.301***
0.457*
1.092
1085
0.00
-563.42
0.169
0.388*
0.655
0.962
1085
0.00
-560.35
0.174
The Istat “Famiglie and Soggetti sociali” survey contained a set of questions in relation to the issues
studied in this essay both in the wave from 1998 and in the one from 2009. By comparing the
relationship between social class and child care choices in 1998 and 2009, we can try to answer to
the question if this relationship has weaken, remained stable or strengthen over the last decade. It
should be remembered that last decade witnessed quite an increase in public and private formal
child care.
Table 4 reports a descriptive analysis: it tells us that the choice of formal child care increased over a
decade in every social class. However a first look at this descriptive table gives us the impression
that middle and service classes households have benefited more than the other social classes by the
increase in the private and public supply.
6
Table 4. Social class and type of child care provided in Italy: a comparison over time (1998 and
2009) (percent by social class)
Working class
Petite bourgeoisie
Middle class
Service class
1998
Public child care
3.5
6.0
8.5
6.5
Private child care
1.0
2.7
5.5
4.1
Informal care
95.5
91.3
86.1
89.4
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
2009
Public child care
6.4
8.4
18.0
14.2
Private child care
2.1
5.2
11.7
13.4
Informal care
91.5
86.4
70.3
72.4
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
Multinomial logit regression analysis run separately for 1998 and 2009 confirm us that in both years
the line of distinctions between social classes are the same (model 1 and model 4 are reported; we
used the same naming for the models as in table 3).
What it is more important is that the wald test used to check if there is a significant difference in the
coefficients’ values over time confirmed us that not only working class children have less
probability to access formal child care in comparison to middle and service classes ones, but this
probability has lowered over time and the distance between the two groups has enlarged.
In other terms, the increase in the supply of formal child care services over the 2000s was partially
“captured” by middle and service classes households: this applies not only to private care but also to
public one. Hypothesis two is not sustained by our data, but it seems to be true the contrary.
Table 5. Multinominal logit regressions on the relationship between social class and type of child
care provided in Italy: a comparison over time (1998 and 2009) (RRR ratios and significance levels
reported) (ref. cat. middle class; base outcome: informal care)
Model 1 (control: child’s age)
Public child care
Working class
Petite bourg.
Service class
Private child care
Working class
Petite bourg.
Service class
N° cases
Prob > chi2
Log pseudolikelih.
Pseudo R2
Model 4 (controls: child’s age; regions; households
characteristics; % workers in the household)
Only1998
Only 2009
Only 1998
Only 2009
0.397***
0.599*
0.707
0.259***
0.400***
0.640
0.557**
0.701
0.709
0.418**
0.638
0.748
0.221***
0.445*
0.801
1888
0.00
-569.25
.121
0.180***
0.294***
1.118
1085
0.00
-591.59
0.134
0.280***
0.579
0.796
1888
0.00
-545.52
0.157
0.301***
0.457*
1.092
1085
0.00
-563.42
0.169
4.2 Child care, social classes and preferences
Unfortunately, as stated above, it is not possible to have a single database where we have
information on child care, differentiating between public and private one, and on the reasons why
formal child care is not used. In order to investigate this second issue we have used the Istat
“Indagine sulla vita quotidiana” micro-data, where there is a set of questions related to the reasons
why households do not use child care.
7
Table 6 presents the descriptive analysis by social class of the choices and the reasons behind using
or not formal (public or private) child care. The Istat survey allows us to distinguish between what
we have defined “personal reasons” and “objective reasons” for not send a child to formal child
care. In the first type we have put reasons such as, for instance: “the child might feel abandoned”, “I
don’t want to delegate the education of my child to others”, “my child is too young”, “we have
somebody in the family who can look after the child”. In the second type we have put reasons
related to the economic cost of child care, the presence of long waiting lists, the distance from the
child care facility.
If table 5 confirms us that the main line of social class distinction is between middle and service
classes versus working class and petite bourgeoisie, it is worthy looking at the different distribution
of the reasons why children don’t go to formal child care. If there is a larger group of working class
and petite bourgeoisie parents who prefer not to send their children to formal child care only for
personal (cultural) reasons and beliefs (this result is in line with the Norwegian and British literature
on the issue), there are quite less differences among social classes in terms of how relevant it is the
group of children whose parents would have liked to send them to formal child care but they have
not been able to do so for objective reasons (costs, availability, distance, etc.). It might even be the
case that the lower level of working class and petite bourgeoisie participation to formal care
activities might be also related to institutional and economic barriers to the access to these services.
Table 6. Social class, use of formal child care and reasons for not doing so in Italy (2011) (percent
by social class)
Formal child care?
Yes (public or private)
No, due to also/only objective reasons
No, due to only personal reasons
Total
Working class
Petite
bourgeoisie
Middle class
Service class
13.8
17.9
68.3
100.0
16.1
14.3
69.6
100.0
26.2
15.2
58.7
100.0
28.3
13.8
57.9
100.0
The descriptive analysis of table 6 seems to tell us that social class differences in the access to
formal child care cannot be imputed only to cultural differences, there are also reasons concerning
how the formal supply of (public) child care provision works.
To better understand this point it is important to look at tables 7, 8 and 9.
Table 7 is a descriptive table that elaborates the information contained in table 6: it takes into
consideration only those children whose parents are sending them to formal child care or they
would have done so if some objective obstacles were not there (costs, etc.). In general, considering
equal to 100 this sub-group of children, only 59% of them gets a child care place: four out of ten
cannot for objective reasons. The potential demand that is not covered is therefore quite relevant.
Moreover table 6 suggests that, when their parents want it, middle and services classes children tend
to be more often covered by formal child care than working class and petite bourgeoisie ones.
Table 7. Social class, the real and potential demand for formal child care in Italy: how many
children are left out of services due to objective reasons (2011) (percent by social class)
Children in formal child care
Yes,
No, due to objective reasons
Total
Working class
Petite
bourgeoisie
Middle class
Service class
43.5
56.5
100.0
53.0
47.0
100.0
63.3
36.7
100.0
67.2
32.8
100.0
Tables 8 and 9 work on the hints from the previous two descriptive tables. Table 8 shows the results
of a set of multinomial logit regressions putting in relation social class with the reasons formal child
care has been chosen or not by a household. If the first rows of the table confirm the differences
8
between social classes in the access to child care, after all the controls we have introduced, the most
interesting results for the present research are that there are not significant differences among social
classes when it comes to the objective reasons why children were not sent to child care facilities.
Table 8. Multinominal logit regressions on the relationship between social class and reasons for
not sending children to formal child care (RRR ratios and significance levels reported) (ref. cat.
middle class; base outcome: no formal child care due to personal reasons) (2011)
Model 1
(control: child’s
age)
Formal child care
Working class
Petite bourg.
Service class
No, due also to objective reasons
Working class
Petite bourg.
Service class
N° cases
Prob > chi2
Log pseudolik.
Pseudo R2
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
(model 1 + geogr.
(model 2 +
(model 3 + % workers in
regions)
household caract.)
the household)
.425***
.534***
1.043
.484***
.574**
1.145
.502***
.589**
1.183
.620**
.759
1.104
1.013
.799
.827
1155
0.00
-932.04
0.078
1.104
.712
.991
1155
0.00
-912.34
0.098
1.109
.834
.995
1155
0.00
-902.45
0.106
1.160
.749
.876
1155
0.00
-887.8
0.116
Table 9 makes more robust the claim that, if we concentrate only on those children whose parents
wanted to send them to child care, working class children, as well as those from the petite
bourgeoisie, have more problems to access to formal child care than middle and service classes
ones: this result holds true also when we control for the working status of parents in the household
(model 4).
Table 9. Binomial probit regressions on the probability that children will not get into formal child
care, when parents would like to, by social class (marginal effects and significance levels reported)
(ref. cat. middle class; ref. cat: child in formal care) (only children in formal child care or with
parents willing to have them in formal child care) (2011)
Working class
Petite bourg.
Service class
N° cases
Prob > chi2
Log pseudolik.
Pseudo R2
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
(control: child’s (model 1 + geogr.
(model 2 +
(model 3 + % workers in
age)
regions)
household caract.)
the household)
.208***
.202***
.197***
.152***
.104***
.098***
.093***
-.034
-.074
-.079
-.075
-.094
395
395
395
395
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
-251.06
-251.46
-248.31
-243.28
.067
.067
.076
.105
In sum the results of the analysis on the Istat surveys are the following:
 there are social class differences in the access to formal, public and private, child care in Italy;
 these differences have increased over time;
 these differences are only partially explained by the different female participation to the labour
market among social classes (with working class mothers usually less present in the labour
market than middle and service class ones);
 these differences are also only partially explained by different preferences; even if many Italian
households prefer to take care of their young children at home and this behavior is more
common in working class families, still there are many children who are not able to attend
9
formal child care and this situation in more pronounced among working class families than the
other types.
If the differences in terms of labour market participation and cultural preferences cannot explain
completely the class differences in terms of access to formal child care, we need to turn also to
another possible explanation: the role of local authorities in rationing the supply of child care and
the effects of the criteria used in rationing in terms of a differentiation in social class access to child
care.
5. The socio-institutional construction of public child care in Italy
5.1 Different models and rationales behind public child care regulation
If it is relevant to understand how public regulation might affect the chances of different social
classes to access child care, then there is a need to study how this regulation works and how it
affects the “social construction” of the potential beneficiaries of the service (Saraceno, 2002). The
issue has been analyzed already in other studies (Bosi and Silvestri, 2008; Brilli et al., 2011;
Zollino, 2008; Istituto degli Innocenti, 2012).
The focus in the present essay is the possible interplay between the criteria used in order to rank
families’ requests for child care services and how this might affect different social classes
households.
Usually the criteria used by Italian municipalities to evaluate and to rank the families’ requests of
admission to child care might be grouped in five headings:
a. criteria related to social exclusion risks and severe disability problems of the child or of another
household member (e.g. many municipalities give higher scores in the ranking to “children
living in complex and socially excluded households”);
b. criteria related to the household structure, in particular to the number of children present in the
family and to the presence of one or both parents (giving higher scores in the ranking to singleparent households);
c. criteria related to the working status of the child’s parent(s);
d. criteria related to the household income;
e. various other criteria (e.g. residence in the same municipality, parents commuting long-distance
for work, etc.).
Municipalities in Italy have such a high degree of freedom in choosing which criteria to adopt that it
is difficult to find two municipalities adopting the same criteria and giving them the same relative
weight in terms of scores, when evaluating a household request to access to child care.
Moreover the presence of different criteria does not have to make us forget that also public
resources and the coverage level (in terms of how many pupils under three have access to public
child care) will have an impact on which households have access to public services.
Bosi and Silvestri (2008) propose a typology of three possible approaches by municipalities to child
care: a “traditional residual model”, where public supply is mainly limited to situations at risks of
social exclusion and care is mainly left to households and the market; a “productivity model”,
where the main aim is to foster conciliation and female labour market participation; a “human
development model”, where the aim is not only to help conciliate but also to help to improve
children’s cognitive and social skills.
In the present section we expand Bosi and Silvestri typology and focusing mainly on the first two,
taking into account that the productivity model can be better articulated, when we study more
deeply the criteria of ranking and selecting households’ request to access public childcare.
The productivity model (and even the human development model) can assume different forms
depending how much attention is given to the issue of fostering access to different groups.
In particular we can imagine five possible models at the Municipal level (see chart 1).
10
The first model is the “residual model”: municipalities able to cover less than 10% of the 0-2 y.o.
children, no matter what they choose in terms of criteria, belong to this group; given the fact that all
municipalities indicate among their priorities to take care of those at risk of social exclusion, the
low level of coverage will mean that children entering public care will be mostly coming from very
disadvantage backgrounds (e.g. in some Southern Italian municipalities, where the coverage rate
does not reach 5%, it is explicitly indicated in the selection criteria that children with their parents
in jail will have the priority to access child care).
The second model is the “no transparent selection criteria” model: as it will be shown below, there
is a group of municipalities that, even if they ensure an average level of child care coverage (at least
in relation to Italian standards), only use general criteria, without giving specific scores to different
types of situations (e.g. single-parent households, dual earner ones, etc.).
There are then three other models, which ensure a medium-to-high level of coverage for Italian
standards, but they do it partially following different criteria. All three of them try to foster
conciliation between care and work, but they do it adopting different rationales.
There is a model, defined “narrow conciliation”, where it results clear that the main target for child
care services are children with (stable) working parent(s). In this model not too much attention is
given to households with unemployed adults or adults with precarious working conditions (in terms
of types of contracts, stability in employment, etc.). Another typical element of this model is that
the household’s income characteristics are not taken into consideration when the selection of
requests in made and therefore two dual-earner households with very different incomes will be
treated in the same way when it comes to select which one gets first their children in the facility.
Another model, called “broad conciliation”, shares a similar approach with the previous one (in
terms of coverage and attention to the issue of working parents), but it also tries to foster the
inclusion in the labour market of parents with a more unstable employment careers: for instance
specific scores are given to households where a parent has a precarious working situation (fixedterm contracts, a series of short-term contracts in the previous months, etc.), is unemployed (and the
scores given in the ranking to unemployment situations are not too different from the ones given in
case of employment) or is not even active in the labour market (e.g. students, housewives, etc.). In
this case the rationale is not only to foster the holding of an occupation for those who already have
one (avoiding that mothers with young children leave their employment due to caring duties), but
also of helping parents (mothers) with more unstable careers to get new job opportunities.
The last model, called “manifold evaluation”, refers to the fact that municipalities, when using
criteria for selection, take into account not only conciliation issues (defined in a “broad” sense), but
also the economic resources households have. Therefore, if there are two households with similar
working conditions but different economic resources, the selection will give a higher score to the
one with less resources. Moreover if there is a dual-earner household with more economic resources
and a single-earner one with less resources, it is still possible that the second one will get a similar
score.
Chart 1. The regulation and the coverage of public child care in Italy: a typology
Criteria used for selecting
requests of access to child care
Child care coverage level
1. Residual model
(low coverage)
3. “Narrow”
conciliation
5. Manifold
evalutation
2. No transparent
selection criteria
4. “Broad”
conciliation
11
How does the adoption of these different models affect our analysis on social class and access to
child care? It does it through various ways.
In the “residual model” we can expect that services are targeted only for the most in need (at risk of
social exclusion), neither for most of working class households nor for middle or service class ones.
The consequence will be that middle or service class households will tend to find a solution in the
private market, whereas working class ones will be stuck in the middle: they are usually neither
“poor” or disadvantaged enough to get into the (safety net) public child care, nor wealthy enough to
access private care.
In the “narrow conciliation” model the ones who could be less advantaged are again the working
class households, vis à vis middle and service class ones, for two reasons: their lower income is not
taken into consideration when ranking the requests; working class households with young children
tend to have more fragmented and unstable employment careers. On this specific point it is
interesting to look at table 10. Using the micro-data Istat Multiscopo “Vita quotidiana” from 2011,
we have taken into consideration the employment conditions of women with young children active
in the labour market: it seems clear that working class women have more problems with
unemployment than other women.
Table 10. Women with children under 5 participating in the Italian labour market: social class
differences in the working status of employed and unemployed mothers (2011)
Working class
Petite bourgeoisie
Employed
68.3
83.3
Unemployed
31.7
16.7
Total
100.0
100.0
Source: own elaboration from microdata Istat “Vita quotidiana 2011”
Middle class
88.6
11.4
100.0
Service class
89.5
10.5
100.0
The “manifold evaluation” model is probably the one, together with the “broad conciliation”, that
should foster a working class access to child care, given the fact that considers unstable working
careers and, the former, income.
It is more difficult to assess what it is the impact in terms of social class access to child care will
have the absence of criteria, when there is already a high level of coverage.
5.2 The situation in the Italian municipalities
Table 11 reports some basic features of the criteria used for selecting applications for public child
care at the municipal level in our sample of 103 local authorities.
The first interesting information is that almost one municipality out of five does not adopt explicit
coded evaluation scores (17.5%), but it rather refers to general criteria (for instance the calls report
sentences such as “the Municipality will take into consideration the applications from single-parent
households, households in economic and social difficulties, households with working adults, etc.”,
without any specification of what it is more important and how the ranking among households will
be made).
A second result is that all municipalities recognize as a priority (often without giving specific scores
but stating that the applications will have top priority) the acceptance of children with disabilities or
coming from households with severe socio-economic or health problems.
A third interesting result is that around one municipality out of three (31.9%), at least among those
who explicit their selection criteria, differentiated between what we might call “deserving single
parents children” and “undeserving ones”. In these cases different scores are given to application of
single parents households depending on the reason there are single parents: if it is due to divorce or
to legal separation, the household receives a lower score than if it is related to, for instance, the
death or the distance (working abroad) of one of the two in the couple.
12
When it comes to evaluate the socio-economic situation of the household, practically all the
municipalities, adopting explicit criteria, used indicators measuring the employment status: 98.7%
asks if the person is employed, quite often differentiating between full-time and part-time (61.0%)
and giving a lower score when part-timers are present; a lower percentage of municipalities (78.7%)
recognizes a specific score in case one or both parents are unemployed; even less municipalities
take into consideration in their criteria the possibility of having a precarious employment (35.9%)
or not being active in the labour market (29.7%), unless for education reasons (69.7%).
Only less than half of the municipalities with explicit selection criteria also use the household
income as a criteria for ranking the applications (46.9%)
Table 11. Criteria adopted by Municipalities for selecting and ranking applications to child care
(year 2012)
Municipalities that adopt selection criteria:
% of
Municipalities
18.5
100.0
General ones and not explicitly defined and measured
Priority given to children with disabilities or coming from households with relevant socio-economic
problems
Different treatment of single parents households depending on the reason why the child lives only with
31.9*
one parent
A specific score given in case of parent(s) employed
98.7*
A specific score given depending if the parent works part-time or full-time
61.0*
A specific score given in case of parent(s) unemployed
78.7*
A specific score given in case of parent(s) unstable working condition (fixed-term contracts, etc.)
35.9**
A specific score given in case of parent(s) who are students
69.7*
A specific score given in case of parent(s) who are not participating in the labour market for other
29.7*
reasons
A specific score is given depending on the economic resourses the household has
37.3 (46.9*)
* Value calculated only for those municipalities that have given specific and explicit scores in order to rank admition
requests
The relevance given to the occupational status varies quite a lot (table 12). Considering equal to 100
the maximum score an application can get, we have ranked the municipalities depending on how
relevant the occupational status is. 15.7% of municipalities mainly ranks applications on the base of
this criteria: more than 60% over the overall score is given on this bases. There are relatively few
local authorities where the scores related to the work condition criteria count in a limited way
(7.2%), whereas in a large group of municipalities (47%) the weight of the occupational status is
relevant.
Table. 12 The relevance of the working status in the ranking criteria adopted by Italian
municipalities (2012) (only for those municipalities that have given specific and explicit scores in
order to rank admission requests)
Percent incidence of the scores related to the working status on the total possible score
reachable by a household request
- Up to 20%
- 20.1-40%
- 40.1-60%
- over 60%
Total
% of Municipalities
7.2
30.1
47.0
15.7
100.0
If the occupational status in important, what counts often even more if the applicants have an
employment or not. Table 13 reports the municipalities’ distribution on the base of the ratio given to
scores related to employment versus the ones related unemployment. Apart from a 21.3% of
municipalities, that do not consider at all unemployment among their explicit evaluation criteria,
most of the local authorities assign very different and higher scores to workers than unemployed:
for example 41% of municipalities assign a score three times higher to employed than unemployed
13
and 66.7% at least two times higher. Only less than one municipality out of four gives an equal or
relatively similar score to both profiles (23.1%).
Table. 13 The relevance of the unemployment status in the ranking criteria adopted by Italian
municipalities (2012) (only for those municipalities that have given specific and explicit scores in
order to rank admission requests)
Ratio between the score given to an employed parent and an unemployed one:
- ratio equal to 1:1 (employed:unemployed)
- ratio between 1.1-1.5:1
- ratio between 1.6-2.0:1
- ratio between 2.1-3.0:1
- ratio over 3:1
Total
% municipalities that do not consider unemployment among their explicit evaluation criteria
% of Municipalities
7.7
15.4
19.2
16.7
41.0
100.0
21.3
Taking into consideration all these criteria, we have constructed a typology of local authorities
resembling the one discussed in section 5.12. Table 14 shows how Italian municipalities are
distributed in terms of child care models.
One municipality out of three adopts a residual model (30.1%): on average in these municipalities
only 4.5% of children is accepted in public child care.
A very small group of local authorities (8.7%) grants a place to at least 10% of 0-2 y.o. children
but it does not specify how ranking criteria are made.
Another 19.4% of municipalities adopts a “narrow conciliation model”, whereas around 10% has
chosen a “broad conciliation one”.
The “manifold evaluation” model is found in around one third of local authorities.
Table 14. The diffusion of different child care models among Italian municipalities (2011-12)
% of Municipalities
Residual model
No transparent selection criteria model
Narrow conciliation model
Broad conciliation model
Manifold model
Total
30.1
8.7
19.4
10.7
31.1
100.0
Average child care coverage
(% 0-2 y.o. children)
4.5
18.9
18.8
21.8
19.0
15.0
It is interesting to investigate how this distribution among models changes depending on the
geographical area, the political orientation of the local government and the demographical size of
municipalities (table 15).
Given the different diffusion of child care services between Centre-Northern Italy and Southern one
(Pavolini, 2011), the prevailing model in the South is the residual one by far (77.1%). In the CentreNorth the situation is more heterogeneous with a strong diffusion of the “manifold model” (39.7%),
followed by the “narrow conciliation” one (26.5%).
If the geographical area influences quite a lot the distribution of child care models, the same applies
to the political orientation of local governments, especially if we concentrate on Centre-Northern
Italy, where the residual model is less present. In particular Centre-Left local governments prefer
models more careful in taking into consideration the issue of economic resources and a broader
inclusion of beneficiaries among different social classes and groups: 45.8% of Centre-Left
2
The typology has been constructed first taking into consideration all those municipalities with coverage levels below
10%. Then we have identified those that do not use any explicit and specific criteria for evaluation. Among the
remaining ones we have performed a hierarchical cluster analysis, based on the following questions: the presence
among the criteria of income; the relevance assigned to the employment status in terms of scores; the ratio between the
scores assigned in case of employment and those in case of unemployment; the presence of scores related to precarious
employment and not active labour market participation.
14
governments in the Centre-North of Italy adopts a manifold model and another 20.8% a broad
conciliation one. At the opposite, among Centre-Right governments in the same part of the country,
a narrow conciliation model prevails (42.1%) or no explicit criteria are used (26.3%).
The demographical size of the municipality plays a more limited role, but it is important in
explaining the diffusion of the no transparent selection criteria model, which is more common in
smaller municipalities.
Table 15. The diffusion of different child care models among Italian municipalities depending on
basic characteristics of the municipalities (2011-12)
Geographical area
Municipality government’s
political orientation
Southern
CentreCentre-Right
Centre-Left
Italy
North
Residual model
77.4
5.9
42.9 (10.5)*
23.9 (4.2)*
No criteria model
2.9
11.8
8.6 (15.8)*
9.0 (12.5)*
Narrow conciliation model
5.7
26.5
22.9 (42.1)*
16.4 (18.7)*
Broad conciliation model
0.0
16.2
2.9 (5.3)*
14.9 (20.8)*
Manifold model
14.3
39.7
22.9 (26.3)*
35.8 (45.8)*
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0 (100.0)* 100.0 (100.0)*
* The values inside the parenthesis refer only to Centre-Northern Italian municipalities.
Municipality
demographical size
(n° inhabitants)
Up to
More than
100,000
100,000
32.8
26.7
12.1
4.4
17.2
22.2
6.9
15.6
31.0
31.1
100.0
100.0
6. Conclusions
The analysis conducted in these pages allows us to draw some conclusions in relation to hypothesis
made and the exploratory aims we had.
Hypothesis 1 seems confirmed: there are relevant differences among social classes in relation to
the access to formal child care.
Also Hypothesis 2 holds: an explanation of these social class differences cannot be based only on
cultural preferences and participation to the labour market, but it deals also with how public
regulation (rationing) and coverage to formal child care shape parents’ choices.
Hypothesis 3 is not confirmed: we expected that with an increase in public coverage, we would
have seen a reduction in social class differences in the access to formal child care; on the contrary,
the opposite took place. The expansion of services was an occasion that was more captured by
middle and service class households than the working class ones.
A closer analysis of how municipalities’ rationing and selection criteria work has been important in
order to better understand how local authorities choices might affect differently the possibility
social classes have to access to formal child care. In at least half of the Italian municipalities,
because the adopt either a residual model or a “narrow conciliation” one, it is probable that
children from working class households will have more difficulties to access child care.
Social class differences are often matched my territorial differences (see the situation of child care
in Southern Italy), but also by different political orientations of the parties governing local
authorities: even if it sounds a bit too rush to conclude so, it seems that politics matters also from
this specific point of view.
The overall results of the analysis are relevant also in relation to the debate about child care as a
tool to improve the cognitive and not cognitive skills of children. If public child care in Italy is
usually of good quality (Bosi and Silvestri, 2008), this type of service really improves the future
“returns” for children who attend it (see the literature in section 2) and there are relevant and
increasing social class difference in the access among Italian pupils, the socio-cultural “divide”
among lower and better educated individuals studied, for instance, by Esping-Andersen (2009)
could be in Italy even stronger than in many other European countries not only now but also for
future generations.
15
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