The Politics of Childcare and the Different Policy Trajectories in Italy and Spain

Spain and Italy share familialism as one of the main features of their welfare systems. Despite institutional similarities – such as underdeveloped childcare services, decentralized implementation, high regional disparity and, as mentioned, persistent familialism - recent policy developments suggest that Spain has deployed more commitment than Italy to the enhancement of early childhood education and care policies (ECEC). Also outcome indicators such as ECEC coverage rates show that both countries have expanded childcare provisions in the last twenty years, but with different intensity. Overall, it seems that Spain has gone more decisively towards a Social Investment (SI) approach - implying greater commitment to the expansion of childcare services, higher female employment and more robust family policies - than Italy.

In light of the aforementioned institutional similarities, the recent diverging path of policy development thus makes it interesting to study internal (i.e. regional) variations in both countries from the perspective of the most similar systems research design. Also, it actually becomes interesting to see whether the political drivers of policy expansion have differed, both at the national and the sub-national level, in order to answer the main research question: under what political conditions have SI agendas and reforms developed in the two countries?

By tracing policy outcomes as well as the configuration of interests/ideas of relevant policy actors since the beginning of the 1990s, the paper thus aims at understanding the political dimension of an under-researched policy field such as de-familisation policies in Spain and Italy.