The role of political representation for the availability of childcare in municipalities of Upper Austria

Authors

  • Tobias Wiß Institut für Gesellschafts- und Sozialpolitik, Johannes Kepler Universität
  • Thomas Pilgerstorfer Arbeiterkammer Oberösterreich

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15203/4142.vol54.2025

Abstract

The literature on public childcare provision focuses mainly on countries as unit of analysis and investigates public expenditures or enrolment rates. We contribute to existing studies by analysing the availability and flexibility of childcare provision at the subnational level. Although Austrian municipalities experienced childcare expansion, there are remarkable differences in availability and flexibility among them. We test four explanations for this variation: party ideology of local councils, party ideology of mayors, women’s representation in local councils, and gender of mayors. Ordinal and logistic mixed-effects models covering 429 municipalities in Upper Austria between 2011 and 2018 reveal that the cabinet share of the Social Democratic party (SPÖ) and women in local councils show a robust association with higher quality of institutional childcare provision, while the Christian Democratic party (ÖVP) is negatively associated. In contrast, mayors play no role.

Author Biographies

  • Tobias Wiß, Institut für Gesellschafts- und Sozialpolitik, Johannes Kepler Universität

    Tobias Wiß is Associate Professor in Political Science at the Institute of Politics and Social Policy at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. His work focuses on comparative welfare state research and comparative public policy, in particular pensions and family policy.

  • Thomas Pilgerstorfer, Arbeiterkammer Oberösterreich

    Thomas Pilgerstorfer works for the Chamber of Labour Upper Austria in the field of social policy and is Master student in Social Economics at the Johannes Kepler University Linz.

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Published

2025-01-09

Issue

Vol. 54 No. 1 (2025): Open Issue

Section

Research Article

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Tobias Wiß, Thomas Pilgerstorfer

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