The relation between structural family characteristics and parental attitudes with respect to the use of ECEC for one- and two-year-old children in Germany

ABSTRACTEarly childhood education and care (ECEC) has been found to be beneficial for the development of children below three years. However, many children do not attend ECEC facilities. Frequently, structural family characteristics (SFC), such as migration background, educational attainment and income, are used to explain differing probabilities of attendance, while parental attitudes are mostly not considered. Thus, assuming that SFC influence attitudes, this paper investigates whether the attitudes and views of parents towards ECEC explain why one- and two-year-old children from disadvantaged families attend day care less often, although they would strongly benefit from high-quality ECEC. The underlying data are from the German DJI Child Care Study (KiBS). The results show that parental attitudes substantially contribute to explaining diverging attendance probabilities. The more positive parents evaluate day care, the higher the probability of their child attending. However, SFC maintain most of their explanatory power. Besides, SFC and parental attitudes interact. The probability of ECEC attendance increases differently depending on the (varying degree of positivity of) attitudes by SFC.KEYWORDS: ECECstructural characteristicsorientationsocial inequalityearly childhoodattitudes towards day carechild care Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementData are publicly available for scientific use from December 2023 at: https://doi.org/10.17621/kibs2021 (Lippert, Kerstin; Anton, Jeffrey; Hüsken, Katrin; Hubert, Sandra; Kayed, Theresia; Wieschke, Johannes; Hoang, Tony; Jähnert, Alexandra; Kuger, Susanne (2023): DJI-Kinderbetreuungsstudie – KiBS. Paneldatensatz 2012–2021. Version: 1. DJI - The German Youth Institute. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.17621/kibs2021). Project Homepage: www.dji.de/KiBS.Notes1 They range between 47 and 65% in eastern Germany and between 16 and 47% in western Germany (Source: Statistical Offices of the Federal States). Early day care in the GDR was normal, as was maternal employment. After the unification, the number of day care facilities in the East decreased. However, the rates have remained considerably higher. Daily duration of care is longer, with facilities opening earlier and closing later.2 Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.3 The legal entitlement refers to one- and two-year-olds, but not for children younger than one year. However, the number of children in day care is mostly specified for all children under three years of age in official reporting. Only a very low share of children below one year attends ECEC.4 For more information, please visit the project site: www.dji.de/KiBS.5 All three percentages refer only to the parents of one- and two-year-old children.6 The first adult was weighted by 1. The second and each subsequent person aged at least 14 years was weighted by 0.5, while children under 14 years were weighted by 0.3. The resulting equivalised disposable income was attributed equally to each member of the household. This procedure ensured that households of different sizes could be compared (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Equivalised_disposable_income).7 Federal and State Statistical Offices (joint statistical portal): https://www.statistikportal.de/de/sbe/ergebnisse/einkommen-armutsgefaehrdung-und-soziale-lebensbedingungen/armutsgefaehrdung-und-9 (Dec 7, 22)8 In addition to differences in rates between the eastern and the western parts of Germany they also differ between urban and rural areas, especially in the East. The mean rates are: 33% (west, urban), 30.7% (west, rural), 47.8 (east, urban) 57.5% (east, rural). Source: Statistical Offices of the Federal States.9 The control variables were those that are listed in the Covariates Subsection and are statistically significant on their own. The age of the child in months and local share of children in day care were the most meaningful covariates.10 These variables were income, family language, family form, number of children and all of the control variables listed in the Covariates Subsection.11 For example, the probability that a child attended day care rose from 17% (lowest mean value on negative attitudes index) to 75% (highest value) if the child’s parents had a median income, but ‘only’ from 38% (lowest income group, negative index) to 79% (highest income group) if the mean value was 4 on the negative index.