Attitudes Towards Childcare and Social Practices: The Case of Spain (1994-2012)

This paper examines the evolution of attitudes and social practices of Spaniards regarding  childcare. For this aim, we use data from representative samples from the last three ISSP Special Modules “Family and Changing Gender Roles” (1994, 2002 and 2012). First, we compare the evolution of attitudes towards employment of mothers, preferred extent of employment for women during different stages of child raising and attitudes toward social policy related to childcare. Second, we analyze how social practices have evolved during last two decades: the distribution of childcare (and looking after other family members) among both partners and employment of respondent and spouse/partner in various phases of child raising. We find two remarkable results: first, an important difference between who Spaniards consider should be principal payers for childcare for children under school age and real social policies in Spain; second, there exist a gap between attitudes toward family roles and actual social practices.