Information Asymmetries between Parents and Educators in German Childcare Institutions

Economic theory predicts market failure in the market for early childhood education and care (ECEC) due to information asymmetries. We empirically investigate information asymmetries between parents and ECEC professionals in Germany, making use of a unique extension of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). It allows us to compare quality perceptions by parents and pedagogic staff of 734 ECEC institutions which were attended by children in SOEP households. Parents and staff were asked to rate the same quality measures. We detect considerable information asymmetries between these groups which differ across quality measures but little by parental socio-economic background or center characteristics. Our findings imply that information is not readily available to parents, an issue that should be addressed by policy-makers

Local Day-Care Quality and Maternal Employment: Evidence from East and West Germany

By investigating how locally available early childhood education and care quality relates to maternal employment choices, this study extended the literature which has mostly focused on the importance of day-care availability or costs. We provided differentiated analyses by the youngest child's age and for West and East Germany to examine moderating influences of varying day-care supply and work-care cultures. The empirical analysis linked the Socio-Economic Panel and the 'Families in Germany'-Study for 2010 and 2011 (N=3,301 mothers) with regional structural quality data. We used regression models of employment status and work hours changes, respectively. In East Germany, mothers with a child aged under three years who lived in districts with smaller day-care groups were more likely to be employed and to extend their work hours. In West Germany, the negative association of child-teacher-ratios with maternal employment was marginally significant. For mothers with older children, day-care quality was unrelated to employment