The Quality of Early Childhood Day-Care Services: Results of the Longitudinal Study on the Development of Quebec Children (LSDQC)

Attending a day-care centre in early childhood has become a normative experience for children. Many studies revealed that, even taking the family context into account, the quality of the day-care milieu has immediate and lasting effects on child development. Since 1997, Quebec's new family policy has been aiming to create a network of quality day-care services which promote the socioaffective and cognitive development of children and prepare them for the demands of the school system. The recent results of the Longitudinal study on the Development of Quebec Children (LSDQC) indicates that most of these day-care services are of minimal quality. The quality of the service varies, however, according to the type of day-care setting. Early childhood centres set up like a family environment are superior to those observed in the for-profit day-care centres and unregulated services in family settings. LSDQC data also reveals that the socio-economic characteristics of families who use day-care services vary condsiderably in quality. Thus, compared to children from well-off families, children from less socially and economically advantaged families are more susceptible to attending lower-quality day-care centres. These results highlight the importance of continuing to invest in a quality public day-care system accessible to all children, regardless of the socio-economic status of their parents.