Cultural and social support explanations of the native-migrant gap in the use of day care for pre-school children

ABSTRACT

Migrant families are generally less likely to use nonparental care for their pre-school-age children than native families. The few studies that have systematically examined the determinants of centre-based care (day care) for migrants have often zoomed in on the migrant population and have not made comparisons with natives nor have they decomposed the migrant-native gap. This paper presents a mediation analysis with an elaborate set of measures conceptually categorised into cultural and social support explanations. Using nationally representative survey data on Dutch parents with origins in Muslim countries and a comparison group of parents with Dutch origins (natives), this paper shows large and growing gaps in the enrolment of 0–4-year old’s in subsidised day care even after controlling for differences in working hours, income, and education. A substantial part of the gap could be explained by cultural differences, particularly the more traditional attitudes toward marriage and family and the higher levels of religiosity among migrants. Of the cultural effects, a lack of trust in institutions appeared to play no role. Social support explanations that rely on alternative sources of support for child care were less important and differences in neighbourhood cohesion served as a suppressor of the gap.

KEYWORDS:

• Centre-based care
• migrant families
• women’s employment
• cultural differences

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In 2020, an investigative committee of the Dutch Parliament concluded that from 2004 to 2019, the government was responsible for systematic, harsh, unfair, and often unjustly sanctioning of parents who had received day care subsidies (Tweede Kamer der Staten-generaal 2020). This so-called ‘Toeslagenschandaal’ is still in the news as of this writing, primarily because the government has not yet been able to compensate parents who were treated unfairly, despite its admittance of responsibility in the affair. Parents who were affected were more often single parents and more often had a migration background, but this applied more to parents with Caribbean origins than to parents with a Turkish or Moroccan background (CBS 2022).

2 https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2013/01/kinderopvang-kost-ouders-gemiddeld-2-000-euro.

3 Other Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa (Kalter et al. 2018)

4 https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/nl/dataset/80305ned/table?fromstatweb.