Abstract

This note presents some data on Australian1 government expenditures on childcare and on the size of the formal childcare sector, in particular the segments of it which have been underpinned by Australian government financial support, directly and through subsidies paid to parents. While the initial objective of this note was to present single ‘best estimates’ of the volume of funding and the volume of care, the nature of the data available, and the extent to which attempting to derive such a ‘consistent and authoritative’ estimate would require significant assumptions and extrapolation, limits such an approach. Nevertheless it is considered of value documenting the information which is available and making it accessible in a single document.

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