The data consists of information collected from parents and guardians of children aged around four years on childcare arrangements and early childhood education solutions. The data is part of the multidisciplinary project "Finnish Childcare Policies: In/Equality in Focus" (CHILDCARE), which is being implemented by the Universities of Jyväskylä and Tampere and the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). In the interviews, questions were initially asked about the everyday life of the child and the family, for example what changes have taken place since the last interview and what solutions have been made in terms of childcare. Then the reasons for the childcare solutions were asked, for example, how and why the current solution was chosen. This was followed by an enquiry about the support and help that respondents had received in relation to childcare and its solutions. They were also asked about the reconciliation of work and family life and about decision-making and negotiation in the family in relation to childcare. Interviewees were asked to describe a typical day for a four-year-old child. They were also asked what their living environment is like for a four-year-old child and what they would think if the municipality offered free early childhood education for five-year-olds. Background data are classified by educational background, age and 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 a comparison between this and the follow-up data FSD3750 and FSD3755. Follow-up interviews were collected from the same parents and guardians when the children were under two years old in 2016-2017 and under school age during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021.

2023