Inequality in pre-school education and care in Germany: an analysis by social class and immigrant status

Abstract

In recent years, early childhood education and care have gained increasing public attention. This has led to an expansion of education and care programmes. Yet, little is known about how parents use different options of education and care. Take, for example, kin care, paid caregivers and out-of-kindergarten activities. Drawing on social reproduction theory, we argue that parents organise their children’s lives depending on their social class. In addition, we hypothesise that immigrant status plays a role in how parents set up their children’s education and care. We use logit regression models to analyse the education and care arrangements of n = 2400 parents with 3–5 year-olds in Germany. The findings show that parents from the middle and upper classes make more use of ‘enrichment activities’ than lower and working class parents. When it comes to the influence of immigrant status and to informal care arrangements, the findings add to a more complex picture.