Comparing Child Care Policy in the Canadian Provinces

Abstract

The ten Canadian provinces offer a rich site for comparative analysis of child care policy. To utilize this, we construct a framework that uses quantitative measures to assess the variation in child care arrangements across the ten provinces. Our framework suggests that provincial child care variation is multi-dimensional and often involves trade-offs or compromises. This finding challenges some of the assumptions of regime theory, which suggests that social policy arrangements are logical and cohesive. We argue that while regime theory is useful for understanding broad differences in social policy arrangements, including differences between Canada and other industrialized democracies, empirical comparative analysis of the kind we have undertaken is important for uncovering the more complex and nuanced variation apparent in real-world policy arrangements at the provincial level.