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Canada and Australia, two liberal welfare states whose market-based ECEC systems consistently rank poorly on international measures, embraced similar short-term childcare policy responses to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: widespread closures, reduced capacity of centers, establishment of publicly funded emergency childcare programs for essential workers, and short-term wage subsidies for essential workers (sometimes including educators). Rooted in a feminist political economy (FPE) theoretical framework and using a what-is-the-problem-represented-to-be (WPR) methodological approach, this article explores the extent to which the first and second "waves" of the COVID-19 pandemic policy responses in Canada and Australia framed childcare as a concern about gendered, reproductive labor within political representations of the policy problems to be solved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents and non-parental adults who interact with children influence child development. This study evaluates the knowledge of child development in two large and diverse samples of adults from Alberta in 2007 and 2013. Telephone interviews were completed by two random samples (1,443 in 2007; 1,451 in 2013). Participants were asked when specific milestones in physical, cognitive, emotional and social domains typically occur (age birth to six years). Data were analysed using univariate and multivariate techniques. Linear logistic regression models were used to examine factors associated with knowledge and differences between the two samples while adjusting for differences and covariates. Adults' knowledge was overall poor (<25% correct responses), but notably higher for physical (48% in 2007, 44% in 2013) than social, cognitive or emotional milestones (=21% in all cases). Knowledge was lower in the 2013 than the 2007 sample (23% in 2007, 21% in 2013), and in particular for mothers after adjusting for location and income (24% in 2007, 22% in 2013). Evidence of low knowledge may have important education and policy implications. Factors such as availability of child development evidence-based information, parental stress and access to quality childcare might play a role in the low levels of knowledge.

Like other liberal-welfare states, Canada, in a climate of balanced budgets and deficit reduction, has been active in developing policies intended to move welfare recipients into employment in order to [...]

In this article, we seek to develop a framework of childcare vulnerabilities experienced by children, parents and providers engaged in the formal, unregulated childcare market. Informed by vulnerability theorists who examine care work within the context of dependency and power relations, we explore the extent to which notions of vulnerability have been considered in childcare research. Five types of vulnerability from the literature – physical, emotional, economic, legal and racial – are mapped onto the experiences of children, parents and providers. We conceptualise an understanding of vulnerability as it relates to unregulated childcare, showing how vulnerability in this sector is compound, interrelated and structural, creating specific challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the absence of a universal, publically funded child care system, the majority of families with pre-school children in Canada depend on unregulated child care. In this study, we explore mothers' strategic and rationalized decision to use unregulated care in the context of a child care 'non-system'. Using the province of Alberta as a case study, drawing upon data from 15 focus groups with 109 mothers in urban and rural locations, we problematize and extend the relationship between cost and quality in the context of informal, unregulated care – where care is provided by family and friends at little-to-no cost – and examine the non-economic and economic costs of this type of care. Describing their experiences, mothers were conscious of the price they were paying: the choice to use informal, unregulated care resulted in non-economic and economic trade-offs in terms of relationships with caregivers, the quality of care provided, and maternal labour force attachment. We show how mothers' options for both quality child care and satisfactory labour market attachment are constrained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which evaluates the outcomes of family support service (FSS) and parent support needs in 923 parent participants from Alberta. The participants were asked to complete a survey that incorporated well validated family, parent, and child outcome measures. The results confirmed the positive difference provided by the family support services by fostering points of connection along with peer-support and informal learning opportunities.

This article demonstrates how the combined approaches of informed pluralism and disciplined integration can help rebridge the distance between the seemingly disparate academic worlds of family science and family business. The authors establish the need for such a resynthesis by documenting trends within family enterprise research from 1985 to 2010. The analysis vividly illustrates not only the increased dominance of publication outlets and theoretical perspectives associated with business but also the near disappearance of those associated with family. In light of these trends, the authors suggest that renewed attention to integrating ideas from the two disciplines is likely to enrich both. To illustrate this claim, this study combines concepts from long-standing theories within the family science literature (structural functionalism and symbolic interactionism) with those from predominant perspectives within the family business literature (agency theory and the resource-based view). The outcome is a series of provocative yet relevant potential new directions for each field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]