Inclusiveness and Flexibility of Care Policies - rEUsilience Working Paper Series: 4

In a way, targets have become more sophisticated to integrate different dimensions of inclusiveness of policy which range from the special attention to the more disadvantaged groups and the improvement of early diagnosis and support for children with disabilities and special needs, to the problem of weak professionalization and poor working conditions of staff in the care sector. [...] 1 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the European care strategy, COM (2022) 440 final. [...] The first of such limitations is the attempt to put together care for children and care for adults under a supposedly unifying rubric of ‘care policies’ because a) the two address very different needs and risks and b) in the trajectory of welfare state reform over the last decades the two seldom walk the same path. [...] In the case of pre-primary, the minimum hours range from 15 in Sweden and the United Kingdom to 25 in Poland and 30 in Spain. [...] In ECEC, the child-to-staff ratio refers to the relationship between the number of children in a group within a childcare or pre-school setting and the number of staff members supervising the group.