The purpose of this chapter is to analyse and compare Nordic day-care
policies, i.e. ECEC services as well as cash-for-care for children under
school age. The chapter examines the legislative purpose behind the provision
of the services and the cash benefits as well as the take-up rates.
The review of day-care will also look at how the programmes are organised and funded, and at the quality indicators of the care provided. In this
context, the Nordic countries will be compared with the EU average. The
review of cash-for-care will assess the key elements of the programmes:
the length of time that the benefit is available, compensation, and the rules
of eligibility. In this context, the analysis is based on Nordic legislation,
policy documents, statistics and literature. This section will concentrate
on the Nordic countries, as no comparable EU data is available.