Socio-Economic Profile and Childcare Use in Italy

Lucia Coppola, Instituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Mariachiara Di Cesare, Universidad de Concepción
Marija Mamolo, Vienna Institute of Demography

We investigate whether socio-economic differences, that may proxy also for cultural differences, influence the use of formal childcare for children aged 0-3 in Italy. We use Italian 2004 EU SILC data. Results show that mother’s employment condition is an important determinant of childcare use. Full-time employed mothers are more likely to use childcare than part-time and not employed women. Childcare availability plays obviously a crucial role and has a positive effect on formal childcare use. This confirms that childcare availability represents a bottleneck for work/family reconciliation and women’s participation in the labour market. No difference in childcare use according to mother’s education suggests that childcare use is more a need rather than a choice. It seems that in Italy it is more the limited childcare availability and accessibility that hamper formal childcare use rather than different, culturally driven, parents’ views on childcare use for very young children.