The World is Changing

menina himba II

Elsa Sousa Faria

2008

«A great change is coming over childhood in the world’s
richest countries.

Today’s rising generation is the first in which a majority are
spending a large part of early childhood in some form of
out-of-home child care.

At the same time, neuroscientific research is demonstrating
that loving, stable, secure, and stimulating relationships
with caregivers in the earliest months and years of life are
critical for every aspect of a child’s development.

Taken together, these two developments confront public
and policymakers in OECD countries with urgent questions.
Whether the child care transition will represent an advance
or a setback – for today’s children and tomorrow’s world –
will depend on the response. »

In «The child care transition:
A league table of early childhood education
and care in economically advanced countries»

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2008