Published on November 18 2024
Early childcare arrangements and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms: an individual participant data meta-analysis of six prospective birth cohorts in Europe
In the European Union (EU) in 2020, approximately 53.4% of children under the age of three years were exclusively taken care of by their parents, 32.3% were in formal childcare for at least 1 h per week and 20.9% were cared for by grandparents, other relatives, or professional childminders.1 Childcare, defined as any care a child receives outside of his/her parents, is often divided into institutionalized childcare (that is centre-based) or informal childcare (a childcare professional, relatives/friends/nanny/babysitter/au pair and/or someone other than the parents). Understanding how non-parental childcare impacts a child's development may provide families and policymakers with valuable information on whether increasing availability of non-parental childcare can benefit not only parents' work-life balance but also children's socio-emotional and cognitive development.
