The Childcare series studies childcare subsidies, availability of early childhood education services, and childcare choices made by parents. The series consists of survey and interview data. The target group included parents and guardians of children of different ages residing in specific regions in Finland. The data were collected over a period of time from the same participants, for example so that data were first collected when the child was aged about one year, and then again when the child was aged four years.
The data for the Childcare series were collected as part of the Finnish Childcare Policies: In/Equality in Focus (CHILDCARE) research project conducted by the University of Jyväskylä and Tampere University in collaboration with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. The research project began in October 2015 and was concluded in September 2021. The first data collection for the Childcare project took place in 2016.
The data consists of information collected from parents and guardians of children under two years of age on childcare arrangements and early childhood education and care solutions. The data is part of the multidisciplinary project "Finnish Childcare Policies: In/Equality in Focus" (CHILDCARE), which is being implemented by the Universities of Jyväskylä and Tampere and the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).
The interviews started with questions about the daily life of the child and the family. Then they were asked about the rationale behind the childcare solutions, such as how and why the current solution was chosen. This was followed by questions about the support and help respondents had received in relation to childcare and its solutions. They were also asked about the reconciliation of work and family life and about childcare-related decision-making within the family. Finally, respondents were asked about current issues in the family leave system and early childhood education and were asked to reflect on the future, on what life might be like for their child at the age of 4.
Background information are classified by educational background, age and municipality classification. The data were organised into an easy to use HTML version at FSD.
The randomized municipality and respondent code of the "interview name" in the data allows a comparison between this and the follow-up data FSD3750 and FSD3751. Follow-up interviews were collected from the same parents and guardians when the children were around four years old in 2019 and under school age during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021.