ABSTRACT
In many advanced industrial societies, child care provisions have fallen victim to the trend toward welfare state retrenchment that has occurred in the wake of recent global economic restructuring. This is not, however, true in Spain, where child care, in contradistinction to other forms of welfare, has increased steadily since the fall of the regime of Francisco Franco in 1975. How can this be explained? Rationales for child care policy usually fall into one of several categories: economic or labor market, poverty reduction, gender equality, or education. In post-authoritarian Spain, the educational rationale has prevailed, generally meeting with great success.
