Spotlight on targets and policy tools needed to achieve universal access: International examples

February 19 2025

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Introduction

Canada has planted the seeds for an effective universal system. The Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) agreements, signed between the federal and provincial/territorial governments in 2021, set in motion the beginning of the expansion of a publicly funded universally accessible child care system. These agreements marked the first formal political recognition in Canada of the societal value of building a robust child care system—one that benefits children, families, and society. 

Importantly, in February 2024, the federal child care promise was subsequently enshrined in federal law with the adoption of an Act respecting early learning and child care in Canada. The new Act sets out the federal government’s commitment to long-term funding for the provinces and Indigenous peoples to establish and maintain a primarily not-for-profit, community based, and public¹ early learning and child care system. 

The CWELCC agreements set an ambitious target of approximately 278,000 spaces (including Quebec), by March 2026. This represents a 47% increase in spaces across the country. Targets vary significantly by region, from a 10% increase in Prince Edward Island and the Yukon to over 200% in Saskatchewan². Ongoing investment and well-designed mechanisms are required to achieve the targets set out in the Canada-wide system.

This Spotlight paper is part of the ‘Growth by Design: Expanding Early Learning and Child Care in Canada’ (2023-2026) project, funded in part by the Government of Canada’s ELCC Data and Research Program. The objectives of the project are to:

• Identify the barriers and facilitators that impact the capacity of public and not-for-profit providers to expand licensed ELCC
• Engage the not-for-profit ELCC community, ELCC allies and public stakeholders in innovative thinking and capacity building to expand access to affordable, accessible and high-quality ELCC
• Identify, describe and assess innovative practices and public policies that have supported the expansion of not-for-profit and public ELCC
• Increase awareness and enable knowledge transfer about effective mechanisms and innovative practices to support the expansion of quality, affordable, accessible not-for-profit and public ELCC

This Spotlight paper highlights some of the key targets and mechanisms other countries have used to achieve and advance their goals of universal child care. It looks at two countries that have achieved this goal (Sweden and Norway) and two that are still implementing changes (Portugal and Germany). The Spotlight concludes with some brief reflections and considerations for Canada. It demonstrates that the most lauded systems in the Nordic countries committed decades of investment and mechanisms to support the expansion of primarily public and not-for-profit child care.

Country Snapshots

Sweden is widely recognized as the ‘gold standard’ in ECEC, characterized by low fees, high quality, and universal access. Achieving this required two decades of sustained government investment and strategic planning to achieve its goal.³,⁴ Universal access to child care was initiated in 1975 through the Law on Childcare, which established child care on the national agenda. The Law entitled children aged 5-6 years old to 525 hours of preschool per year. In 1976, there was space for 35.2% of children aged 0 to 6 years.⁵ By 1991 the entitlement for 5-6 year olds was extended to children 18 months and older.  

In the first half of the 1990s the number of children in ECEC increased from 571,000 to 753,000,  representing approximately a 31% growth in spaces over 5 years. There were significant variations in the proportion of children enrolled by age, and across municipalities. For 1 year olds, enrolment increased from approximately 35% to 50% between 1990 and 2017; for 2 year olds enrolment increased from 56% to 91%, and for 3-5 year olds from 66% to 96% in the same period.⁶ 

Following ongoing investments and well-designed policy tools and mechanisms, full coverage was achieved in the 2000s. 

Norway’s expansion journey began in the 1970s, with periods of strategic investment and growth. The first period of strategic growth started with the 1987-88 White Paper, which set a goal to reach universal coverage by 2000.⁷ Although this goal was not fully realized, and a large proportion of enrolments were part-time, enrolment during this period increased from approximately 66% in 1990 to 90% in 2000. Part of the increase can be attributed to moving 6 year olds from the child care system into the school system.⁸ 

Expansion continued between 2000 and 2020 with the introduction of a legal entitlement in 2009, as well as the shift to more full-time spaces. The percentage of 3-5 year olds in ECEC increased from approximately 52% in 1990 to 78% in 2000 and 96% in 2018.⁹ 

Germany enshrined a child care entitlement for children aged 3 to school age in 1996 and expanded this to children aged 0 to 3 years in 2008. This legislated entitlement was accompanied by three major investment programs between 2008 and 2017.¹⁰ These first three investment programs totaled €3.3 billion and 450,000 additional childcare places. 

Between 2006 and 2015 the proportion of children aged 1 and 2 years old in care increased from 29.4% to 48.5%.¹¹ Most recently, Germany has made two significant investments in ECEC in 2018 and 2022. These 4th and 5th investments together are intended to create 190,000 spaces. The government continues to invest funds and adapt policy mechanisms to support expansion. In Berlin, one of the biggest Länder (federal states), investments since 2012 have led to an additional 57,900 spaces, equivalent to a 46% increase in spaces between 2012 and 2023.¹²

Since 2021, Portugal has significantly increased funding to expand access to child care for children under 3 years old.¹³ The ‘New Generation of Social Services and Facilities’ plan allocated funding for an additional 11,000 new child care spaces, equivalent to approximately a 9% increase between 2020 and 2022. Independent analysis showed that an additional 19,118 new spaces would be needed to reach their target coverage rate of 60% across all regions.¹⁴ The government is continuing to commit more funding and develop innovative approaches to achieve universal access.¹⁵

Summary of targets and mechanisms for expansion

Caveats and considerations for Canada

Childcare expansion is measured differently across countries and jurisdictions – some measure spaces, others enrolments, others coverage rates; some only full-time spaces, and others consider part-time enrolments. These nuances and caveats make direct comparisons between countries difficult. However, the experiences of Sweden, Norway, Germany, and Portugal offer valuable lessons for Canada as it seeks to expand its early learning and child care system:

1. Legislative entitlement: Enshrining child care access in law helps ensure long-term commitment and stability.
2. Sustained investment: Achieving universal access requires decades of dedicated funding and strategic allocation.
3. Local accountability: Municipal responsibility, combined with federal funding, ensures tailored solutions that address regional needs.
4. For-profit risks: The Nordic experience in particular offers an important lesson about the circumstances and consequences of for-profit expansion. In Sweden, there was only a modest development of for-profit providers because the system had reached full coverage before vouchers were implemented. The sector was already saturated when for-profit providers were allowed to enter in 2008. This contrasts with Norway, where for-profit providers entered in 2003 when the market was still expanding.¹⁶

Overall, these global trends and patterns offer important lessons for Canada. In all countries federal governments have committed unprecedented investment, enacted legislation that establishes an entitlement to early childhood education and care, and introduced policy tools and mechanisms that require local planning and accountability at all levels of government.

Footnotes

1. Public child care refers to services that are delivered by public entities, including: municipalities, school boards, and Indigenous governing bodies. Not-for-profit and for-profit operators may still receive public funding but are not publicly owned and operated.  ↩︎
2. This is based on authors’ calculations using the 2021 space figures in CRRU’s ECEC in Canada report 2023 (Table 10) and the new spaces agreed to in the federal-provincial/territorial agreements (summarized in CRRU 2023 ‘A summary of the Canada-wide early learning and child care agreements and action plans’, Table 3. ↩︎
3. Korpi, B. M. (2007). The politics of pre-school: Intentions and decisions underlying the emergence and growth of the Swedish pre-school. Ministry of Education and Research. ↩︎
4. Garvis, S., & Lunneblad, J. (2018). Inequalities in access to early childhood education and care in Sweden. The Equal Access Study, 30-34. ↩︎
5. Trætteberg HS, Sivesind KH, Paananen M, Hrafnsdóttir S. Privatization of Early childhood education and care in Nordic countries, Springer Nature: Switzerland. p55. ↩︎
6. Trætteberg HS, Sivesind KH, Paananen M, Hrafnsdóttir S. Privatization of Early childhood education and care in Nordic countries, Springer Nature: Switzerland. p64. ↩︎
7. Trætteberg HS, Sivesind KH, Paananen M, Hrafnsdóttir S. Privatization of Early childhood education and care in Nordic countries, Springer Nature: Switzerland.  ↩︎
8. Beach, Jane (2022). More than spaces: Creating universal child care in Norway. Childcare Resource and Research Unit: Toronto. ↩︎
9. Trætteberg HS, Sivesind KH, Paananen M, Hrafnsdóttir S. Privatization of Early childhood education and care in Nordic countries, Springer Nature: Switzerland. p67. ↩︎
10. Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Women and Youth (2023). National Action Plan: New opportunities for children in Germany.  ↩︎
11. Corti F, Morabito C, Ruiz T, Luongo P. The role of the Recovery and Resilience Facility in strengthening childcare policies, Foundation of European Progressive Studies. Policy Report. 2022, p9. ↩︎
12. Senate Administration for Education, Youth and Family (Berlin) (2022). ‘New daycare places for Berlin’. Available at: https://www.berlin.de/sen/jugend/jugend-und-familienpolitik/familienpolitik/neue-kitas-fuer-berlin/#headline_1_14  ↩︎
13.  Eurydice (2024). Early childhood and school education, Portugal. Available at: https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-education-systems/portugal/early-childhood-and-school-education-funding (accessed 10 February 2025) ↩︎
14. Corti F, Morabito C, Ruiz T, Luongo P (2022). The role of the Recovery and Resilience Facility in strengthening childcare policies, Foundation of European Progressive Studies. Policy Report: Brussels. ↩︎
15. Eurydice (2024) National reforms in early childhood education and care, Portugal.  ↩︎
16. Trætteberg HS, Sivesind KH, Paananen M, Hrafnsdóttir S (2023) Quasi-Market Regulation in Early Childhood Education and Care: Does a Nordic Welfare Dimension Prevail? Nordic Studies in Education. ↩︎

Acknowledgements

The opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Employment and Social Development Canada.

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