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Policy legacies and child care politics in Australia and Canada

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, 2015. / "September 2015." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 58-63). / This study explores the puzzle of why Australia and Canada have followed significantly different paths in national-level child care policy despite their otherwise similar welfare state structures. Australia has developed a relatively generous system of public subsidies to support the provision of care for young children, while at the same time relying increasingly on the market to deliver child care. In contrast, Canada has extremely low levels of public spending and service provision, resulting in a less expansive system of regulated child care. I trace these divergent outcomes to the impact of post-WWII child care policy legacies in these countries and the way that these legacies interact with the changing politics of the welfare state to produce variation. In Canada, child care policy was first established within a social assistance framework as a service intended to combat poverty, while in Australia, child care was introduced as an economic policy to facilitate women's workforce participation. The differences in the intended goals of these policies affected the subsequent patterns of child care politics and policy development in these two countries, leading to the divergent outcomes observed today. / by Kelly E. Pasolli. / S.M.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/101806
Date January 2015
CreatorsPasolli, Kelly E
ContributorsKathleen Thelen., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science.
PublisherMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Source SetsM.I.T. Theses and Dissertation
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format63 pages, application/pdf
Coveragen-cn--- u-at---
RightsM.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

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