Plans for nursery in Hungary

Abstract

Research questions related to the institutionalized forms of early childhood care (this primarily means various forms of nursery the so called “bölcsőde” in Hungary), are located at the intersection of disciplines. In our study, we are using the data of the Cohort 18 – Hungarian Birth Cohort Study to present the plans and needs of pregnant women in Hungary for nursery in general and according to their social characteristics. We examine how is demographically, socially determined who, what types of families plan / want to send their children to nursery. We analyse the effect of the differences in the plans to the inter-generational reproduction of social inequalities. We calculate the actual capacity needs for nursery, in addition we present how this required capacity can be influenced by regulate the flexibility of the nursery-kindergarten transition.