Education, healthcare and housing: How access changed for children and families in 2020

Access to key services such as education, healthcare and housing has been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. A new report recently published by Eurofound investigates the changes that have taken place in the European Union up to the end of July 2020. The methodology is based on data from Eurostat’s European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and Eurofound’s Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey, which was carried out in 2020 to capture the implications of the pandemic for the way people live and work across Europe.

The report highlights that the right to quality, affordable and inclusive Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is emphasised in the European Pillar of Social Rights. The monitoring of progress in this area involves tracking the percentage of children aged under three who are cared for by formal arrangements for at least one hour per week. This indicator shows that the take-up of ECEC for children aged under three years is very low in some countries – below 5% in Portugal and in several central and eastern European Member States. For the EU as a whole, just 14% of children in this age group attended ECEC. Ireland’s rate is about 25%. Regarding those aged 3 to 12, less than one-third of children were cared for by formal arrangements in the EU. In Ireland, that is about 62%, which is significantly above the EU average. These estimates correspond to 2019 data.

At the EU level, the main reason people give for not using (more) professional childcare is that they arranged informal childcare alone or with a partner (45.8%). Other reasons mentioned were that children take care of themselves (19.5%), that there are other informal supports available (14.8%) or other personal reasons (6.6%). Costs were mentioned by 5.5% of respondents, followed by having no services accessible or vacant (3%) and other service-related reasons (2.8%). These estimates correspond to 2018.

The widespread closure of ECEC services and schools across the EU as a consequence of COVID-19 led to a sudden increase in the time parents spent caring for their children. In July 2020, people with children living in their household spent an average of 41 hours a week caring for and educating them. Single parents, however, spent substantially more time on these activities (48 hours a week) than those living with a partner or spouse (30 hours a week). Furthermore, female single parents spent 52 hours a week caring for and educating children.

Another interesting result is that the life satisfaction reported by respondents in households with children in July 2020 was lower than those in households without children. Data prior to the COVID-19 outbreak show the reverse: that families with children had higher life satisfaction and happiness than those without children. This suggests a deterioration of the mental health of families during the pandemic, perhaps as a consequence of increased childcare and education duties taken on by parents.

Early Childhood Ireland uses evidence like this to highlight potential future implications and to devise the policy strategies that will be necessary to address them. We are at a crossroads, as the decisions taken now will deeply affect the future development of the sector in Ireland. Our advocacy work turns this evidence into action, in order to influence policy makers to take decisions in the best interests of children.