2023-06-30 03:04:00
Statistics Austria publishes the figures for childcare every year. Austria is still a long way from meeting the EU requirements. According to this, by 2010 every third child under the age of three should have attended a childcare facility. A value that is slowly within reach following a delay of 13 years. In the years 2022/23, 29.9 percent of children between the ages of zero and three attended a crèche in Austria.
In the previous year, the EU continued to raise the requirements. By 2030, according to the so-called “Barcelona target”, 45 percent of under-threes should attend a daycare facility. Austria swerved here: a quota of 31.9 percent was agreed.
Regional differences
There are big regional differences. As usual, Vienna leads: 42 percent of the youngest visit a corresponding care facility there. Burgenland, Vorarlberg and Lower Austria are also above average. Styria brings up the rear with a childcare rate of 19.9 percent for under-threes. In Upper Austria it is not significantly higher at 20.8 percent. Upper Austria is thus in penultimate place.
Image: OÖN graphic
Deputy Governor Christine Haberlander still saw the numbers as positive. Upper Austria has started catching up, and the rate has almost doubled in the last ten years. If you were to include childminders, 23.4 percent of children under the age of three would be in childcare, Haberlander calculated. “Last year 100 new groups were created and this year another 100 new groups can be established,” said the VP State Councilor.
Women’s Minister Susanne Raab (VP) even spoke of “top values” in childcare. In all federal states, the care rate for three to six-year-olds is over 90 percent, she said. Of course, five-year-olds must attend a childcare facility. Raab promised to push ahead with the expansion of childcare, she referred to the additional funds of one billion euros that would be made available to the federal states.
A sign of poverty
The Neos interpreted the statistics completely differently. Neos family spokesman Michael Bernhard spoke of a “poor testimony”. “The countries outside of Vienna are letting working mothers and fathers and their children down and are taking away the parents’ freedom to decide for themselves whether and how much they work,” he said, calling for a trend reversal.
Because apart from the care quotas, the opening hours are also decisive. In Vienna, more than 90 percent of the childcare places are compatible with a full-time job for the parents. In Upper Austria and Lower Austria, only every fourth available kindergarten place is open at least 45 hours a week and 47 weeks a year.
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Annette Gantner
Editor of Domestic Policy
Annette Gantner
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