Social investment for whom?: childcare reforms and the struggle for inclusiveness. The case of the autonomous Province of Trento

ENGLISH ABSTRACT My argument, that draws heavily on the works by scholars of social and welfare policy as, among others, Gosta Esping-Andersen (2002, 2013), Bruno Palier (2010, 2012), Brian Nolan (2013), Bea Cantillon (2011, 2012, 2013), Anton Hemerjick (2011, 2012, 2013, 2013, 2015), Maurizio Ferrera (1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2000, 2012, 2013), and Chiara Saraceno (2011, 2013) regards social investments as a twofold product of the neoliberal workfare model (Jessop 1990). On the one side, social investment prescriptions are to be understood as a counter-reaction to the neoliberal project of †œrolling-back†� the public sector involvement in social security. Social Investment infuses public intervention of a new centrality, one that finds its raison d'àªtre in the need to mitigate the disruptive impact of market forces on social cohesion, as well as in the potential of welfare programs to foster individual productivity and sustain growth in post-industrial economies. On the other, social investment demonstrates a degree of continuity with elements of the neoliberal ideology, with particular respect to the stigma placed by the latter on unproductive, †˜passive' entitlements, but also concerning the favor accorded to principles of welfare governance such as customer's choice, multi-level provision, and accountability The welfare system intended by proponents of the social investment model is meant to function in a radically different socio-economic context from those of the 1950s or even the 1980s. During the last three decades, along with demographic changes, European countries have witnessed the consolidation of a new service economy marked, as Andersen observed, by an increasing correlation between prosperity and the †˜diffusion of knowledge and innovation' (2000). In the post-industrial knowledge society, goes the adage, human capital has become the prime engine of growth †" a doctrine crystallized by the European Council in the Lisbon Agenda's notorious passage †˜people are Europe's main asset' (European Council 2000).  This PhD research project takes issue with the social investment paradigm, in particular the claim that a functionalist childcare strategy constructed upon the needs of currently employed individuals can prove effective for decreasing inequality in educational opportunity across socio-economic groups (SEGs). I advance the view that recent efforts to recalibrate welfare states towards activation policies have generated irregular dynamics of early childhood services expansion. Whereas over the last two decades both the number of day-care centres and overall participation rates in formal childcare have increased across the European Union (EU), this broadening of provision has not been accompanied by an equally broad commitment to create a universal legal entitlement to childcare. Likewise, EU countries have often been found wanting in enacting adequate measures to remove financial and cultural barriers preventing families with low socio-economic status from taking up more hours of formal early education. The PhD focuses on the case of early childhood governance in the Autonomous Province of Trento / APT (Italy) throughout the 1995-2015 period, which makes for a paradigmatic example of social investment-inspired childcare strategy. Over the period in question, renewed public investment has raised childcare participation considerably in the APT, but concurrently it fell short of setting the foundations for a universal model, capable of ensuring access to all SEGs. Overall, the research points to the emergence in the APT of †œtwin fault lines†� of childcare fragmentation, between socio- economically distinct groups and between providers. The socio-economic fault line refers to the unequal distribution of childcare across SEGs, telling apart affluent families from those that struggle to shoulder childcare costs. The second line touches upon the remarkable cleavage in training and qualification requirements that separates the staff employed in day-care centres under public jurisdiction and private providers that are exempt from compliance with these norms. With respect to the †˜socio-economic fault line', childcare policies in the APT have followed a choice- increasing pattern, which ensued the rise of para-public and private day-care centres, as well as of family-based services. Whereas the Regional government has attempted to ensure equal access through means-tested subsidies and voucher schemes, both public and non-public centres still present flat fees and higher tariffs that run the substantial risk of crowding out low-income families. In general, the distribution of childcare remains dramatically skewed along socio-economic lines, with higher-income families recording much higher participation rates. Concerning the †˜professional fault line', over the same twenty-year period, a concurrent trend of increasing staff professionalism has run parallel to the expansion of services in the APT. Since the late 1990s, both minimum qualification and training requirements for childcare staff have been raised from secondary school to a bachelor's degree in a field related to psychology or education. Applicants are also required to have undergone a minimum of 200 hours of training/practice. Whereas such reforms have translated into a significant upgrade of entry level qualifications for early years practitioners, pointing to a shift towards increasing professionalism in the sector, these regulatory changes have only applied to the public and para-public sectors, leaving fast-growing private and family-based services largely unaffected. ABSTRACT ITALIANO  Background Il tema centrale di questo progetto di ricerca, che prende le mosse dai lavori condotti da studiosi di politiche sociali e sistemi di welfare quali, per citare i pi๠noti, Gosta Esping-Andersen (2002, 2013), Bruno Palier (2010, 2012), Brian Nolan (2013), Bea Cantillon (2011, 2012, 2013), Anton Hemerjick (2011, 2012, 2013, 2013, 2015), Maurizio Ferrera (1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2000, 2012, 2013) e Chiara Saraceno (2011, 2013), ਠun'analisi del graduale processo di consolidarmento di un nuovo paradigma welfarista, conosciuto come  †˜social investment', o †˜welfare dell'investimento sociale'. L'emergere di questo approccio, che ha investito tanto la sfera della governance quanto quella relativa alla sostenibilità  finanziaria della spesa sociale, ha acquisito forza in Europa a partire dalla seconda metà  degli anni Novanta, ed ਠstato definito come un duplice prodotto di quella che Jessop (Jessop 1990) ha definito la natura lavorista del welfare neoliberale, il cosଠdetto workfare state. Alla stregua di questa intuizione, il paradigma del social investment puಠessere considerato, al contempo, come un contraccolpo, una reazione, all'idiosincrasia liberista verso il dominio pubblico della sfera sociale, affermatosi con prepotenza nei decenn successivi alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale, e come una manifestazione di continuità  con alcuni dei principi cardine che, invece, caratterizzarono dal punto di vista organizzativo il sorgere negli anni Settanta e Ottanta di un'alternativa ferocemente anti-keynesiana all'amministrazione del welfare. Se dunque, da un lato, il paradigma del social investment ha infuso di una nuova legittimità  l'intervento pubblico nel campo socio-assistenziale (ma anche educativo), legittimità  che trova nella tutela della coesione sociale e nella protezione del cittadino dalle forze centrifughe del libero mercato la sua raison d'àªtre essenziale, esso ha comunque mantenuto un alto grado di scetticismo verso la †˜passività ' degli strumenti di protezione tradizionali, caratteristici della fase espansionista nota come Trentennio Glorioso (1945-1975) e giudicati gravemente inadeguati alla realtà  post-industriale del XXI° secolo.