The Strength of Weak Ties? Understanding Educational Differences in Parents' Childcare Benefit Knowledge by Applying a Social Capital Approach.

ABSTRACT: Childcare benefits are an important policy instrument to increase the use of formal childcare and often women's participation in the labour market. However, lower-educated parents continue to make less use of childcare benefits and subsequently less use of formal childcare services. We argue that lower-educated parents are potentially less knowledgeable about childcare benefit regulations, a knowledge gap that may be explained by educational differences in access to childcare benefit information through parents' social networks. Analysing a representative sample of parents in the Netherlands, we find that lower-educated parents indeed have less knowledge about childcare benefits than more educated parents. We also find that while there are no educational differences in access to strong tie

SUBMITTER: Seibel V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12668249 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature