ABSTRACT
Despite its implications for gender equality, the topic of child day care has been relatively neglected in feminist social science. One reason may be the undoubted complexity of the issues entailed. The subject of my own research has been more specific; it is an attempt to explain the striking contrast between the levels of public childcare provision in Britain and in a number of other European countries. Here, while the overall picture is still complicated, two connected considerations stand out and will be the focus of the following discussion: on the one hand, the character of childcare as an issue closely linked with the 'private' sphere of the family; and on the other hand, the existence of different state traditions or propensities for state intervention (these need to combine of course with specific national policy priorities). Thus, the making of childcare policy is crucially located along the public-private disjunction that is the central theme of this book.
