Globalisation and privatisation: The impact on childcare policy and practice
sessions where they learn to work with educative
daycare predominantly recruits unemployed
tools. The programme is most often described
women with little formal education – a high
as a parent support programme aiming at
risk group for unemployment. However,
empowering the Turkish community (Ottoy
according to Moss (1988) the first argument
2004). However, it can also be seen as a way of
is unsubstantiated: the cost of family daycare
making parents and individuals responsible for
varies considerably according to the conditions
the inequalities in Belgian preschooling, and
and level of support offered. For example, in
puts pressure on them to increase the success
the UK, the cost of a place in family daycare
of their children in school. Similar examples
was only a third of the cost of centre-based
can be found in a variety of locations across
care, whereas in some Parisian municipalities
western Europe in migrant and low-income
it was up to 80%. The trouble with the second
communities, where interventions justified
argument – that daycare provides employment
as being empowering are actually a means of
for poorly educated women (Mooney and
benevolent state control similar to the charitable
Statham 2003) – was that it legitimated the
th
interventions of the 19 century.
recruitment of large groups of women with no qualifications other than being a mother. This
Neo-liberalism in Belgium
created a culture of low fees, kept the mothers’ formal training to a minimum and did nothing
As in most European countries, the 1980s in
to enhance their poor working conditions.
Belgium was a decade of economic crisis, rising
Despite this, investment in family daycare was
unemployment and budget cuts. However, at
spectacular, and in the case of Flanders it led to
the same time the state was also being urged
the highest percentage of such care services in
to increase childcare provision, which was
Europe (figure 2).
viewed as being an important measure to enhance the equality of women in the labour
For Flanders and for other countries that
market. Thus it was essentially the economic
invested in family daycare in this first wave,
function of childcare that justified an increase
two things are clear: a) a substantial part of
in public expenditure. Consequently, in the
early childhood care has been provided by an
th
last decades of the 20 century, the number of
unqualified workforce; and b) the systems do
Flemish childcare places significantly increased.
not appear to be very sustainable. Indeed, in all
The first wave of increases in the 1980s was the
European countries except the UK, the number
result of massive investment in family daycare.
of family daycare providers is now decreasing.
The formal argument in favour of family
In Belgium, better working conditions (such
daycare was that it was ‘just like home’, but
as unemployment benefits and social security)
there are also two economic arguments. First,
temporarily stopped the decrease in 2003, but
that daycare is a cheaper form of childcare
it is generally expected to continue to fall.
than formal centres, and secondly, family
Investment in family daycare can be viewed as
9