Various reports show that assigning organisations need to pay more attention to child care and education issues for expat kids up to 4/5 years old, who have not yet started kindergarten.
More reimbursement for pre-kindergarten children
Two reports published by global consulting firm Mercer show a shift towards reimbursement of pre-kindergarten education. In the International Assignments Survey (2010) 30.4% of companies cover (a part of ) those costs, while a similar report published two years later shows that 43.2% of companies offer forms of reimbursement for children between 2 and 5 years old.
Hardly any reimbursement for daycare
The same reports show that daycare assistance is offered in only a minority of cases. The most recent Mercer survey says that daycare costs are reimbursed without limits by 1.4% of companies worldwide, up to a certain limit by 3.6%, and on a case-by-case basis by 7.6% of companies. No assistance at all is offered by 77.3% of companies worldwide. From a regional perspective, European companies are slightly more inclined to offer forms of daycare assistance than their American counterparts.
Huge geographical differences in costs
One problem with reimbursement of daycare costs is the often huge difference between home country and host country costs. In Western and Northern Europe, for instance, the net costs of daycare can be five times more expensive in one country than another. Additionally, the costs of childcare provisions in typical expat countries such as Qatar, Kuwait, UAE and Singapore can be very high.
This limits partners’ options
Based on Global Connection’s own surveys and coaching, we have concluded that receiving no daycare assistance limits the possibility of expat partners engaging in activities such as paid work, volunteering, or studying.
