Throughout the world the number of working mothers with young children has continued to grow. This has important consequences for social policy decisions, particularly in the fields of parental leave, childcare and pre-school services provision. Some countries are far more successful at combining high quality early childhood services with high percentages of mothers in employment, whereas others continue to struggle.

This edited volume examines the ways in which different countries across the world are tackling early childhood services and how these services affect young children's experiences and development, for better and worse. Some of the recurring questions of childcare provision are tackled, including:

• Is pre-school childcare detrimental to children?
• Does the quality of childcare matter?
• Why are some countries succeeding in providing quality childcare services, and others are not?
• How can we best organise parental leave, employment regulations and childcare provision?

Edward Melhuish is Professor of Human Development at Birkbeck, University of London And Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London. He specialises in child development and the influence of experience. For several years Professor Melhuish has been a principal investigator on the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) and Effective Pre-school Provision in Northern Ireland (EPPNI) projects based in England and Northern Ireland. He is also currently the Executive Director of the National Evaluation of Sure Start.

Dr Petrogiannis is lecturer in developmental psychology at the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. He has worked as a visiting tutor in the Department of Psychology of the Panteion University, Athens, and as a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Education and Psychology at the University of Ioannina, Greece. His main areas of interest are in psychological measurement and research methodology, child care impact upon children's development and parent-child relationships.