Child Care Policies and Programs: An International Overview

Child development research is more extensive and more sophisticated in the U.S. than in any other country. U.S. policymakers have access to more and better information about the factors known to enhance or impede good child development than those in almost any other country. Nonetheless, the U.S. lags far behind almost all the major advanced industrialized countries with regard to the supply, quality, and affordability of out‐of‐home child care services for children under compulsory school age. This article documents the availability and quality of child care services and related policies, primarily in northern and western European countries, the leaders in the field. It identifies and describes the policy choices that the Europeans have made regarding child care for young children of different ages, and it proposes a brief agenda for future comparative child care policy and program research.