Sweden Doesn’t Mandate Childcare Ratios. Why Does America?

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul have announced that some communities in New York City will receive free 2‑K (daycare for two-year-olds) seats this fall. Their supporters are hailing the move as a major step toward universal childcare, such as that provided in Sweden.

The American Left reveres Sweden’s childcare system. Jacobin celebrates it as delivering on a “collective responsibility.” The People’s Policy Project praises the Nordic nation’s generous public funding. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Elizabeth Warren champion taxpayer-funded universal childcare modeled in part on Sweden. “What we have in mind and what my policies most closely resemble are what we see … in Sweden,” Ocasio-Cortez has said of her broader policy agenda.

They’re right that Sweden heavily subsidizes childcare, with public funding following families using public or private providers. But one feature of Sweden’s childcare system would shock many on the American Left.

Sweden, often held up as an exemplar of high-quality early childhood education, does not regulate preschool staffing through mandated child-to-staff ratios.

That’s right. Sweden has no legally mandated child-to-staff ratio for förskola (preschool), which serves children ages one to five. Many other countries do, and all U.S. states do. Yet as the OECD notes, “There is no regulation or guideline for child-staff ratios” in Sweden.

Has the lack of a government mandate led to mayhem in Sweden? Does the absence of a required ratio mean that a single overburdened childcare worker is expected somehow to supervise hundreds of children alone?

Not in Sweden, which has a similar proportion of children in its population as the United States. Even without any explicit mandate, typical child-to-staff ratios remain quite reasonable. According to the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket), the ratio of full-time staff positions to children in preschool is roughly 5:1.

If the government is not prescribing every staffing decision, what ensures that providers make responsible choices? Competition and market signals.

A preschool that created unreasonable conditions would swiftly face reputational consequences. Sweden gives families the freedom to choose private preschools. Parents can select environments they feel best meet their children’s needs, encouraging preschools to provide a high-quality environment as they compete for families. About 22 percent of Swedish preschoolers attend privately run preschools.

Judging by Sweden’s example, child-to-staff ratio mandates apparently aren’t necessary. And it’s not clear that they offer many benefits, either. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis of studies from the United States and several other countries found surprisingly little high-quality evidence that smaller ratios improve child outcomes among children ages zero through five. The researchers noted that any effects on measures such as literacy were “inconclusive” and that existing research provides “little guidance on what the appropriate adult/​child ratios and group sizes are.”

But while any benefits remain uncertain, one effect of strict ratio requirements is well documented: they raise costs, reducing affordability.

In the United States, the wide variation in state regulations—from California and Michigan, which allow one staff member to supervise no more than four toddlers (ages one to three), to Florida and Texas, which allow up to 11—provides ample opportunity to examine the effects of more stringent staff-to-child ratio requirements.

In the state with the least restrictive child-staff ratio mandate, toddler care costs $7,254 annually, while in states with the most restrictive child-staff ratio, toddler care costs an average of $20,196—more than 2.5 times as much. One explanation is that high-income states have both stricter ratios and more expensive childcare. But even after controlling for state income, stricter childcare regulations are associated with higher costs for families. Research shows that more regulations mean fewer childcare centers, especially in lower-income communities.

In part, that’s because these strict ratios also create needless compliance burdens: inspectors may cite childcare centers when a teacher briefly steps out of a classroom that remains supervised by several other staff members.

By not regulating staffing ratios, Sweden proves the choice isn’t between mandates and bad care. In the United States, the choice often comes down to trusting the people closest to the children or pricing their families out of care altogether.

Sweden’s approach asks policymakers to place their confidence in childcare professionals and families instead of micromanaging these arrangements. If Sweden can trust parents and providers to deliver quality care, so can we.