In a social investment perspective child care is fundamental for at least three reasons: it should improve individuals’ skills and knowledge since an early stage in their life (ensuring better chances of educational and work success later on in their life); it should improve work-care conciliation for working parents (especially women); it should improve the social inclusion of children coming from potentially socially excluded and difficult backgrounds. Therefore investing in child care seems a “win-win” strategy for families, enterprises and the State. However the fact that child care policies are taking place in an age of “permanent austerity” could bring with it two different sets of shortcomings. The will to increase child care coverage rates in Europe could come at the cost of rationing services to the “ones most in need” and of focusing more on quantity of coverage than quality of services. In this session, a mix of methods and analysis (single country analysis, more general cross-country comparisons) will be used in the various contributions which enable us to tackle the various questions around social investment with greater detail and nuance.