The radical overhaul of Australia’s preschool sector will require better legislating for the sector and increasing the number of early childhood education teachers, according to this policy paper. The paper summarises the current structure of preschool in Australian in contemplation of major policy shifts announced by the Commonwealth. It follows a Council of Australian Governments...

In 2009, the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) was completed nationwide for the first time. Between 1 May and 31 July, information was collected on 261,203 children (97.5 per cent of the estimated national five-year-old population). The AEDI is a population measure of children’s development in communities across Australia. The AEDI gives us a national...

Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, managed jointly by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Australian Institute of Family Studies, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is a long term research project to better understand the environment in which Australian children are growing up.

The strategy is based on clear evidence from Australia and overseas that the early years of a child’s life have a profound impact on their future health, development, learning and wellbeing. It is of concern therefore that Australia is seeing increases in poor outcomes for children and young people in a number of key areas...

The supply of formal childcare has expanded in many developed countries. There is ambiguity, however, in the theory that the entry of care providers increases consumers’ surplus and the welfare of households in a market with differentiated services, such as childcare. This study empirically investigates how perceived search costs and parental life satisfaction change when...