The Strength of Weak Ties? Understanding Educational Differences in Parents' Childcare Benefit Knowledge by Applying a Social Capital Approach.

Abstract

Childcare benefits are an important policy instrument to increase the use of formal childcare and often women's participation in the labour market. However, lower-educated parents continue to make less use of childcare benefits and subsequently less use of formal childcare services. We argue that lower-educated parents are potentially less knowledgeable about childcare benefit regulations, a knowledge gap that may be explained by educational differences in access to childcare benefit information through parents' social networks. Analysing a representative sample of parents in the Netherlands, we find that lower-educated parents indeed have less knowledge about childcare benefits than more educated parents. We also find that while there are no educational differences in access to strong ties (e.g., family and friends) and weak ties (e.g., acquaintances and neighbours) as sources of information, lower-educated parents benefit more from weak ties for knowledge acquisition than intermediate and higher educated parents. We discuss our findings in light of the current debate on the relevance of systemic knowledge about welfare state services for reducing societal inequalities.