Book review: Childcare Markets: Can They Deliver an Equitable Service? by Eva Lloyd and Helen Penn

Upward trends in women’s labour force participation as well as a growing interest in a ‘social investment’strategy for policy-making have brought early childhood education and care (ECEC) and other children’s services to the forefront of policy debates in many advanced welfare states. This edited volume by Lloyd and Penn explores the market-based approach to ECEC, outlining the theoretical tensions
inherent in a market for children’s care and documenting empirical variation in childcare markets across countries. The volume takes a multidisciplinary perspective, with contributions from economists, sociologists and early childhood specialists