Childcare in Belgium

Motherhood affects mothers’ professional career in different ways: it can cause them to quit their job, it can encourage them to scale down their working time, it can lead them to change occupations or industries and it can hold them back in terms of career and wage progression. These effects are observed to different degrees across European countries. Public childcare provision appears to be the most effective means to guarantee women’s access to employment; public supply in quantitative and qualitative terms is thus of crucial importance. This paper discusses the supply of childcare in Belgium.