Who deserves the spot? Attitudes towards priorities in access to subsidised childcare.
Research on perceptions of deservingness has so far mainly focused on cash benefits. We correct this imbalance by studying public attitudes towards access to social investment services, specifically, subsidised childcare. Based on the well-established corpus of deservingness research and recent work...
| Published in: | Journal of European Public Policy Vol. 33; no. 4; pp. 1072 - 1095 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Apr2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=192155791&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 192155791 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 13501763 5BM jtl: Journal of European Public Policy issn: 13501763 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2026 vid: 33 iid: 4 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 192155791 10.1080/13501763.2024.2438107 ppf: 1072 ppct: 23 formats: tig: atl: Who deserves the spot? Attitudes towards priorities in access to subsidised childcare. aug: au: Bonoli, Giuliano Gandenberger, Mia K. Knotz, Carlo affil: IDHEAP, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland University of Neuchâtel, Neuchatel, Switzerland University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway su: Attitudes toward entitlement Child care services Public welfare Public opinion Social policy Cross-cultural studies Germany sug: subj: Germany Attitudes toward entitlement Child care services Public welfare Public opinion Social policy Cross-cultural studies keyword: Childcare deservingness social investment welfare attitudes welfare regimes ab: Research on perceptions of deservingness has so far mainly focused on cash benefits. We correct this imbalance by studying public attitudes towards access to social investment services, specifically, subsidised childcare. Based on the well-established corpus of deservingness research and recent work on varieties of social investment, we expect the traditional deservingness criteria to matter and for results to vary across countries. To test our argument, we rely on an original survey experiment conducted in 2021 in six Western countries (Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the USA). We find that cross-national patterns of responses broadly reflect the categorisation of three types of social investments, that is, inclusive, stratified and targeted social investment. Further, we find that some of the well-known determinants of deservingness perceptions play an important role in the attribution of priorities of parents who need childcare: most clearly need and identity (operationalised with the parents' nationality and their length of residency). This is true in all six countries covered. We conclude that patterns of deservingness perceptions to subsidised childcare services are determined by a mix of institutional factors (that differ across welfare regimes) and more fundamental attitudes towards helping those in need. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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