Early childhood education and care (ECEC) policies universally have expanded and transformed over the past few decades. The funding objectives for public and private investment in ECEC services have shifted in various ways, often with intentions to achieve specific outcomes for different groups of the population. Broadly speaking, ECEC services have been designed for children and for parents (that is, mothers). As outlined in Chapter Two, spending on childcare before the 1960s was largely viewed as a philanthropic service for children from disadvantaged families – particularly children in families where it was a necessity for mothers to work. During the 1960s and 1970s, early ‘education’, opposed to ‘care’, services were developed for preschool-aged children and were designed to enhance children's development and school readiness. Such early education services were used mostly by middle-class children whose mothers did not work outside the home. They were not designed to encourage mothers to participate in the workforce. Calls for expanded public spending on childcare services in the 1960s and 1970s were underpinned by the idea that ECEC should be expanded and available to all mothers as a means to address gender inequities in the workplace and the home.

In the 1990s, new research demonstrated the benefits of high-quality ECEC services for disadvantaged children and families. Under this new ‘human capital’ rationale, targeted investment in ECEC services for vulnerable families was promoted as a strategy to address inequities in children's learning outcomes and give them a ‘head start’ before starting school. Mothers have also been at the centre of policy design. The availability of childcare services enhances mothers’ ability to participate in the paid labour force and, in principle, helps balance the division of unpaid childcare in the home. However, research shows there is still a far way to go to realising gender equality, particularly in the home (Craig and Mullan, 2011; Craig and Powell, 2013).

Women around the world have increased their participation in the paid labour market. Women from some countries, however, increasingly seek opportunities outside their home country. For women from developing countries, care work in more developed countries is often regarded as a pathway to a better life. For many women (and men), the opportunity to undertake paid work in more developed countries is viewed as a way to earn money to be sent back to their families in their home countries.