CHILD CARE SERVICES IN LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN

Childcare coverage for children under four years of age has increased considerably in Latin America and the Caribbean. This expansion was aimed at facilitating women's labor force participation. Emphasis in quality services during the first years of life is essential. This document presents systematic information related to the design, management, financing and quality of childcare services in the region. These are the most important findings. First, evidence suggests that there are inconsistencies among the objectives of most of the programs - comprehensive child development- and the design of services that they offer. Second, programs ran by municipalities stand out as having better structural variables (usually associated with better quality of services) in comparison to those that depend on national governments, where investment rate per child served is lower. Third, there is variability in per-child costs of service, which is consistent with not only, a considerable heterogeneity in quality, but also with differences in cost-effectiveness across provision and management models. Offering quality childcare services to all children and guaranteeing that the public supply of these services reaches the poorest families are two important priorities that are still pending in the region's social policy agenda.