Childcare is a topic of much debate in the enlarged EU due to demographic changes and an ageing population. Against this background, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions initiated research into the EU childcare sector, focusing on out-of-school care for...

Hobby schools form the main type of out-of-school care in Estonia. Hobby school activities are regulated by the Ministry of Education which provides a common curriculum and certifies instructors. They are supervised by the government and receive most of their funding from municipal governments....

In Germany, the out-of-school care system consists of various types of services, many of which are locally based or run by voluntary organisations, and there are no figures on general coverage available. For West Germany it can be estimated that currently still only a minority of children...

In the United Kingdom, out-of-school care provision has expanded to meet increased demand. It is largely a success story demonstrating that a broad societal agreement about the need for, and value of, out-of-school care can be translated into a widespread reality in a relatively short period of...

In Portugal, the growth of out-of-school care in disadvantaged areas has taken place along two main lines: the development of compulsory out-of-school care services in primary schools and the development, since the mid-eighties, of publicly-subsidised NGOs working - and projects put in place -...

The influence of parenting on the well-being and future opportunities of children is widely acknowledged, but it is only recently that parenting support and education have come to be viewed as a social investment that contributes towards reducing parental stress and helping parents to manage...

This report presents the conclusions from a seminar on families and childcare services held in Ankara, Turkey, on 5 June 2008. The seminar was organised by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), in cooperation with the Turkish Ministry of Labour...

Changes to traditional gender roles and the labour market are forcing a rethink of conventional work-life patterns. Individuals are calling for a better quality of life, while employers require greater flexibility in the workplace. The idea of reorganising time over the whole course of working...

Neuere Untersuchungen haben ergeben, dass sich die Arbeitsbedingungen der Arbeitnehmer in der Europäischen Union im Laufe der letzten Jahre im Allgemeinen nicht verbessert haben. Die Anzahl befristeter Arbeitsverträge hat jedoch nicht dramatisch zugenommen. In der EU zeigt sich im Hinblick auf...