The data consists of information collected from parents of five- and six-year-old children on their childcare arrangements and their family's daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data is part of the multidisciplinary project "Finnish Childcare Policies: In/Equality in Focus" (CHILDCARE), carried out by the University of Jyväskylä, Tampere University and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). In the interviews, questions were initially asked about the child's and family's everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, how the pandemic and COVID-19 restrictions affected the child's everyday life in spring 2020. Then, they were asked what life was like for the family in autumn 2020 and how the pandemic had changed the family's life. The survey then asked how the children in the family felt about the pandemic and the changes it brought. Looking to the near future, the interviews asked about the interviewees' thoughts, concerns and hopes regarding the COVID-19 and family life. The interviews also asked how parents' work was organised in everyday life and how the pandemic had affected the division of labour between parents and their ability to cope. The interviews also looked at whether the role of early childhood education and care services had changed during the pandemic, and how communication between home and early childhood education and care had taken place. Background data are classified by educational background and age, as well as by municipality classification. The data were organised into an easy to use HTML version at FSD. The randomized municipality and respondent code of the "interview name" in the data allows comparison between this and the follow-up data FSD3755 and FSD3751. Follow-up interviews were collected from the same parents when the children were under two years old in 2016-2017 and around four years old in 2019.

2023