The present data collection refers to data on formal childcare and other types of care by duration (less than 30 hours a usual week; 30 hours or more a usual week), age of the child (0-2 years; 3 to admission age for compulsory school; admission age for compulsory school to 12) and country.

Formal childcare refers to the four EU-SILC survey variables:
1. Education at pre-school or equivalent
2. Education at compulsory education
3. Child care at centre-based services outside school hours
4. Child care at day-care centre organised/controlled by a by public or private structure

Other types of care  refers to the EU-SILC survey variables:
1. Child care by a professional child-minder at child's home or at child-minders's home
2. Child care by grand-parents, other household members (outside parents), other relatives, friends or neighbours

For a broader view of the data framework see EU-SILC.

The standard classification systems are applied:
- Economic activity: NACE
- Occupation: ISCO
- Level of education: ISCED

For more details see EU-SILC

All economic sectors are covered.

The concept to be measured is the availability of childcare services across the EU Member States.

When interpreting the coverage rates, one has to take into account that the use of childcare facilities does not answer directly the question of whether demand is fully met.

In 2002, during the Barcelona Summit, Member States have adopted the following targets:

Member states should remove disincentives to female labour force participation and strive, taking into account the demand for child care services and in line with the national patterns of childcare provision, to provide childcare by 2010 to:

• at least 90% of children between 3 years old and the mandatory school age and
• at least 33% of children under 3 years of age.

The European Commission, in collaboration with the Member States (Employment Committee) has developed since 2002 methodology and data collection in order to measure progress towards these targets on a basis of an EU-harmonised source. The following indicators were agreed in 2004 by the Employment Committee and EU-SILC (EU Survey on Income and Living conditions) was chosen to be the European statistical source for measurement of the indicators:

Children cared for (by formal arrangements other than by the family) up to 30 hours a usual week / 30 hours or more a usual week as a proportion of all children of the same age group. Breakdown by:

• Children aged under 3 (0-2 years)
• Children aged between 3 years and the mandatory school age
• Children aged between mandatory school age and 12 years in compulsory primary (or secondary) education

The third age group (school-going children) is not covered by the Barcelona targets.

The age of admission to compulsory primary education changes among countries. The table below gives the theoretical starting age of compulsory education used to define the age categories:

For more details on the structure of education systems from pre-primary to tertiary education (ISCED 0 to 5) and on the admission to compulsory primary education, see the Eurydice webpage.

As formal arrangements are considered four types of childcare and education:

• Education at pre-school
• Education at compulsory school
• Childcare at centre-based services outside school hours (before/after) and
• Childcare at day-care centre

Education at pre-school and education at compulsory school

Pre-school or equivalent (e.g. kindergarten, nursery school ...). The educational classification to be used is ISCED Level 0. Special pre-schools or equivalents for children who have special needs (handicapped ...) shall be included as far as they are considered as pre-school (level 0).

''Compulsory'' school shall be understood as a mean to separate school from pre-school, but all the school hours have to be included : primary and eventually secondary schools shall be included (children up to 12 years old at the 31/12/N-1).

Childcare at centre-based services outside school hours (before/after)

This variable concerns only the children who are at pre-school or at school in the childcare reference period.

Child care at day-care centre

This concept includes all kinds of care organised/controlled by a structure (public, private). This means that the parents and the carer are not the only persons involved in the care, that there are no direct arrangements between the carer and the parents in the sense that there is an organised structure between them (which is often the carer's employers).

Child care by a professional child-minder at child's home or at child-minder's home and Child care by grand-parents, others household members (outside parents), other relatives, friends or neighbours

These concepts refer to the direct arrangements between the carer and the parents (parents are often employers, pay directly the carer) and to unpaid care (free or informal arrangements such as exchange of services).

Therefore, formal arrangements include all kind of care organised/controlled by a structure (public, private). Care provided by childminders without any structure between the carer and the parents (direct arrangements) have been excluded from the definition of "formal care" in order to take into account only childcare recognised as fulfilling certain quality patterns. As regards the age group 3 to compulsory schooling age, it has to be noted that pre-school arrangements (that concern a high share of children) are included under the heading of formal arrangements.

Household definition:

According to the Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003, a 'private household' means "a person living alone or a group of people who live together in the same private dwelling and share expenditures, including the joint provision of the essentials of living". EU-SILC implementing regulation number 1983/2003 on updated definitions, defines households in terms of sharing household expenses and (for non-permanent members) in terms of duration of stay and (for temporarily absent members) in terms of duration of absence. However, participant countries are free to adopt the common household definition from their national statistical system instead.

Reporting unit: Individuals (income data is compiled at household level and equivalised)

The EU-SILC target population in each country consists of all persons living in private households.

A household is defined in terms of shared household expenses. If not shared, then the person(s) constitute separate household(s) at the same address.

The childcare target population consists of all household members not over 12 years old.

EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey.

Aggregates: EU-28, EU-27, EU-15, EA-19, EA-18, EA-17 and NMS-12.

Comparable childcare data are available since 2005.

Not applicable.

The EU-SILC project has been launched in 2003, on the basis of a 'gentlemen's agreement' in six MS (Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Austria) as well as in Norway. EU-SILC (Statistics on Income and Living Conditions), now operates under a framework Regulation of the Council and the Parliament (Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003) and a series of Commission implementing Regulations.

The starting date for the EU-SILC instrument under the Framework Regulation of the EP and of the Council was 2004 for the 12 EU-15 MS, Estonia, Norway and Iceland, with a derogation for Germany, Netherlands, the UK and 10 new countries with the exception of Estonia to start in 2005 under the condition that they supply comparable data for the year 2004 for the cross-sectional common EU indicators that have been adopted by the Council before 1 January 2003, in the context of the Open Method of Coordination. From 2005 all EU-25 countries plus Norway and Iceland provide data from the EU-SILC survey. Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Switzerland have launched SILC in 2006, Croatia in 2010. For more details of this data source, refer to the relevant reference metadata pages and supporting texts.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

EU-SILC is based upon a sample of the population. The results are therefore subject to the usual types of errors associated with sampling techniques. Based upon the sample size and design in the various Member States, Eurostat implements basic guidelines intended to avoid publication of figures which are statistically unreliable.

Publication rules

All results are subject to a comprehensive validation process prior to publication, firstly at national level, then at EU level. For indicators derived from EU-SILC the following rules apply:

For all indicators:
: = no information available (sample size=0).
(no flag) = sample size more than 50

For percentages:
u = low or very low reliability because sample size less than 50

For other indicators (means and medians):
u = low reliability because sample size between 20 and 50
:u = estimation can not be published because sample size is below 20

Childcare data are released after the end of the reference period once data processing and validation is terminated. Although this is not scheduled in a release calendar, data for year Y should usually be available before April Y+2.

Not applicable

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Dissemination format') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

No news release.

No specific publications.

Please consult free data on-line.

An anonymised EU-SILC data base has been developed and made available for research use under contract. Details concerning data from national sources can be accessed via the websites of the statistical organisations concerned. The EU-SILC regulations specify quality criteria to be applied.

Not applicable.

See EU-SILC dedicated section

EU-SILC framework regulation - (EC) No 1177/2003 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 16 June 2003

EU-SILC implementation regulation (COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 1983/2003 of 7 November 2003)  

Detailed guidelines of EU-SILC can be found: EU-SILC Quality

See in particular in document DOC065 the description of the six variables which are the source of childcare data: Education at pre-school (RL010), Education at compulsory school (RL020), Childcare at centre based services (RL030), Childcare at day-care centre (RL040), Childcare by a professional child-minder at child's home or at child-minder's home (RL050) and Childcare by grand-parents, other household members (outside parents), other relatives, friends or neighbours (RL060).

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

In 2002, during the Barcelona Summit, Member States have adopted the following targets:

Member states should remove disincentives to female labour force participation and strive, taking into account the demand for child care services and in line with the national patterns of childcare provision, to provide childcare by 2010 to:

• at least 90% of children between 3 years old and the mandatory school age and
• at least 33% of children under 3 years of age.

The European Commission, in collaboration with the Member States (Employment Committee) has developed since 2002 methodology and data collection in order to measure progress towards these targets on a basis of an EU-harmonised source. The following indicators were agreed in 2004 by the Employment Committee and EU-SILC (EU Survey on Income and Living conditions) was chosen to be the European statistical source for measurement of the indicators:

Children cared for (by formal arrangements other than by the family) up to 30 hours a usual week / 30 hours or more a usual week as a proportion of all children of the same age group. Breakdown by:

• Children aged under 3 (0-2 years)
• Children aged between 3 years and the mandatory school age
• Children aged between mandatory school age and 12 years in compulsory primary (or secondary) education

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

Results from EU-SILC should be supplied by participant countries to Eurostat within 12 months of the end of the survey year: annual data for year N will be available in December of year N+1.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

See EU-SILC metadata in related metadata section.

Published estimates stemming from the EU-SILC are considered fully internally coherent, since arithmetic and accounting identities in the production of EU-SILC datasets are observed.

Errors, whether arising from input data or calculation methodology, are corrected as soon as possible following their identification, and replacement figures are published.

Data collection: With effect from 2004, EU-SILC data collection is governed by a framework regulation of the Council and the Parliament and implementation regulations of the Commission. Changes in methodology are developed in collaboration with NSIs and are announced in the Official Journal of the European Communities.

The EU-SILC methodology is based on Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 and on Doc 065/05.2 Description of target variables.

These documents can be obtained on request from Eurostat, Unit F4 (Quality of Life).

Indicators
The development of indicators under the Open Method of Coordination is a transparent, collaborative process with member states. The work of the Indicators Sub Group of the Social Protection Committee is ongoing to refine and develop the portfolio of indicators of social inclusion and of pensions. For more details, refer to explanatory text about the Open Method. Additional work is undertaken in collaboration with the Eurostat Working Party on Income Poverty & Social Exclusion. Once agreement is reached on a revision to previous methodology, or an expansion to the portfolio of indicators, this is implemented as rapidly as possible and the results are updated together with any associated explanatory notes.

Data collection
With effect from 2004, EU-SILC (Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) data collection is governed by a framework regulation of the Council and the Parliament. Changes in methodology are developed in collaboration with NSIs and are announced in the Official Journal of the European Communities. For more details, refer to summary methodology and supporting explanatory texts for EU-SILC data source.

Childcare data is derived from EU-SILC. Under EU-SILC (Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions), responsibility for fieldwork is delegated to national statistical offices in each country. More information on relevant surveys apart from EU-SILC can be found in the corresponding 'reference metadata' pages.

In most cases participant countries launch a new EU-SILC survey from scratch with integrated cross-sectional and longitudinal elements (this is the Eurostat recommendation). Other countries use a combination of registers and interviews. Others seek to adapt existing national sources.

Minimum effective sample sizes are specified in the EU-SILC framework regulation 1177/2003. They should be carefully designed to ensure a degree of representativity - and are to be increased by participant countries to the extent that their national sample is not determined on a simple random basis, or to reflect likely levels of non-response, or to reflect any specific national requirements. Separate values are specified for the cross-sectional and longitudinal elements.

For the EU15 countries, the minimum effective sample size for the cross-sectional element covers some 156,000 individuals living in 80,000 private households (LU: 3250, DE: 8250).

For the 10 countries which joined the EU in 2004, the minimum effective sample size for the cross-sectional element covers some 95,000 individuals living in 41,000 private households (CY: 3250, PL: 6000).

See EU-SILC.

Various data collection methods (e.g. CAPI, CATI, PAPI, telephone and face-to-face interviews) are used, depending on the country.

There is a comprehensive validation procedure applied prior to finalization of the EU-SILC database for a particular cross-sectional and longitudinal "wave" (year of survey plus any re-working of prior year data). Source data is initially reviewed at national level. It is subsequently submitted to Eurostat for multilateral validation together with detailed quality report, following which bilateral contacts are pursued as necessary.

The specific data validation procedures employed varies with the specific nature of the variables underlying each indicator.

Indicators are submitted for comment to NSIs prior to publication.

Estimates at aggregate level (e.g. EU-28, EA-19) are calculated as the population-weighted arithmetic average of individual national figures.

Missing survey data is imputed using procedures specified in EU-SILC implementation regulation 1981/2003. This includes income data, household composition data and other elements.

Population totals (numbers of individuals living in private households) are estimates and may differ from figures published elsewhere by Eurostat.