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More Child Care Facilities – Reduced Burden on Parents Increases Satisfaction

Press Release of December 12, 2013

As of 2005, and since 2008 in particular, child care provision for under-three-year-olds in Germany has been expanded across the board. We examine whether this expansion of services using evidence of a reduced burden on mothers and fathers with children in this age group has significantly increased these parents’ satisfaction with various areas of their lives. To shed more light on this issue, we analyze data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) and Families in Germany (FiD) and compare them with official data to provide information about the regional child care ratio. These analyses show that both parents tend to be more satisfied with child care and family life in a region with a wider range of child care facilities. Particularly for mothers in western Germany, there is also a positive correlation between child care services and satisfaction with income, health, and life in general, indicating that an increased provision of early years child care helps reduce the double burden of work and family against a background of dominant gender roles that still prevail.

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