Childcare Expansion in Conservative Welfare States: Policy Legacies and the Politics of Decentralized Implementation in Germany and Italy

Abstract

Italy and Germany have historically lagged behind other European countries in the provision of childcare and other measures aimed at reconciling work and family life. Yet, in light of exceptionally low fertility rates and an increasingly important orientation toward labor market activation, especially among women, these two male breadwinner welfare states have embraced the European Union (EU)'s 2002 Barcelona targets for publicly provided childcare and introduced large-scale initiatives for expanding childcare. While both countries' national governments have committed to large public investments in childcare, the timing and pace of development and the resulting regional patterns of public childcare provision are quite different. European and national policy initiatives fare differently depending on the organizational and normative environment in which the policy change is being implemented. Specifically, this paper argues that decentralized implementation and the legacy of previous childcare policies in each country together help account for the cross-national and sub-national variation in childcare development.