Author:

Keywords:

Welfare state, Verzorgingsstaat

Abstract:

Child-minding in Flanders is still in a period of rapid expansion and demand has never been greater than it is today. More than 6 out of 10 parents regularly use day care for their pre-school children. About half of nursery school children and 3 in 10 primary school children regularly use out-of-school care.

For Kind en Gezin, the organisation that monitors child-minding for the Flemish authorities, it is important to continue to follow developments closely from the perspective of the consumer also. How many parents use child-minding facilities? When and under what circumstances? What type of child-minding do they use and does everyone find something that suits them? How do they evaluate the quality of child-minding facilities? The aim of the study commissioned by Kind en Gezin from the Higher Institute for Labour Studies (HIVA) was to organise a large-scale survey of a representative group of parents with young children in Flanders into their use of child-minding and the background to this. The study was to cover both pre-school and schoolchildren. In addition to an analysis of about 2000 ‘standard’ Flemish families, use of child-minding by certain specific groups was also investigated. These were: families with a disabled child, ethnic minority families, disadvantaged families, one-parent families and families where the mother is unemployed.