UNICEF IRC publication assesses early childhood services in OECD countries

11/12/08

In the past decade, two developments have occurred that have the potential to greatly benefit and greatly harm children.

According to UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre’s Report Card 8, ‘The Child Care Transition’, today, a majority of the rising generation in economically advanced societies is spending a significant part of childhood in out-of-home childcare. In the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, almost 80 per cent of three- to six-year-olds are in some form of early childhood education and care. For under-threes, the proportion is 25 per cent, rising to more than 50 per cent in individual countries. In the last decade many countries have also begun to see sharp increases in the numbers of the children under the age of one year being cared for outside the home.

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