Cross-national Variations in Care and Care as a Labour Market

The main aim of this chapter is to provide contextual cross-national background information on changes in care policies in a selected number of European countries that will be of relevance for the development of the overriding analytical framework of this volume as well as for setting up the grounds for comparison of national case studies. The chapter is divided into three main parts. The first part looks at trends in coverage and expenditure for early child care and education (ECEC) and long-term care (LTC) programmes in Europe over the last decade. The second part offers an overview of the main institutional set-ups for ECEC and LTC. The third and final part studies care as a labour market. Using data from the EU-Labour Force Survey and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), this third part analyses the care workforce in terms of occupations and professions and their working conditions.