Unequal educational opportunities: fewer daycare centers in poorer districts

In poorer districts in Germany, parents are often available to do fewer daycare places for their children than in wealthier quarters. This is the result of a new study by the Institute of German Economy (IW). “It is rarest where early childhood education is most urgently needed and is most efficient,” writes the employer-related institute in its survey “inequalities of local daycare care”, which is available to the German Press Agency.

52 cities under the magnifying glass

The researchers have examined the daycare situation in more than 2,600 quarters of 52 cities, for which small-scale official data is available, for example, about family structures and dependence on the residents of government services. The result: Although there has been “an enormous expansion” in such places since the legal entitlement to a daycare center in 2013. “Nevertheless, the offer could not keep up with the even more increased demand.” Parents of an estimated 300,000 children have recently been in vain for a daycare center.

The most difficult is the search for the results of the IW researchers in the quarter, in which children have more difficult because of the harder social situation of the parents. There could also be different opinions in the families, whether you put the child to the daycare center or not. But above all, the researchers determine a “supply gap”: socially precarious parents’ homes are therefore less likely to succeed as well-situated to have the desire for daycare care fulfilled.

Specifically: The 20 percent of the districts with the lowest rate of basic security recipients are around 16 percent better cared for with daycare centers than the respective city average. And according to the study, the 20 percent with most beneficiaries have around 5 percent fewer daycare centers. “Sometimes there is a double, triple or even four times such good supply of a socio-economic well-made compared to a precarious district.”

Within the same city there are one third more daycare centers per one of a certain number of children in well -off quarter than in rooms. But there are also differences between the cities, according to the researchers. Heidelberg cuts particularly well in their city ranking – 61 children come to an achievable daycare center. At the bottom of this list, Gelsenkirchen and Krefeld with 166 children each stand.

The main reason: free daycare centers in boom district

In the fees, the researchers see only a possible reason for the parents’ decision not to have children visited. The ability and willingness to carry the fees are different. However, the researchers also refer to the abolition of fees in many countries and municipalities. Among the parents with a lower social status and migration background are more often people who are not so easy to obtain full information and get one of the rare daycare places.

As the main reason for the unequal distribution of daycare, the study sees “that denominational and private-common daycare centers are much more common in prospering quarters than in socially weak districts”. In better-off districts, there was a significant expansion of publicly subsidized daycare offers with a non-profit organization.

Demand of better families weighted higher?

But why are not the same many daycare centers built in poorer quarters? “Firstly, municipalities may prioritize the demand from socially better -placed families because these groups communicate their needs and demands better.” Secondly, denominational and freelance supports often also have their own location decisions-and there are now around two thirds of the daycare places under their roof.

In West Germany, the cities partially counteracted the trend towards the unequal distribution of daycare centers, according to the IW researchers – with municipal daycare centers. In East German cities, on the other hand, the trend towards inequality from more daycare centers in better -off quarter is particularly clear.

Consultation of inequality

For the researchers, the unequal distribution of daycare and thus educational opportunities is “fatal”, as they write. Because this is probably how it is “reproduction of socio -economic opportunities for opportunities” – that is, social gradients will not be less, but more.

Study author Matthias Diermeier told the dpa: “The money that is invested in daycare centers does not arrive sufficiently where it should arrive.” Diermeier warns of the consolidation of inequality structures.

Even good school grades distributed unevenly

Only about two years ago, the international educational study Pisa Germany had not issued a good testimony. The differences in mathematics, reading and natural sciences – it said at the time – are hardly as big in Germany as in Germany. The effect of social origin is particularly large in this country. The IW now refers to this PISA study – and warns more efforts that everyone can benefit from early childhood education as the basis for the further path.

Inner -city spatial observation (IRB) for Pisa 2022 – National Report