Health & Nutrition

This report focuses on strengthening systems that support professional development as a critical task for the early childhood development field. The report advocates for an integrated professional development system that:

• Fully incorporates infant-toddler workforce preparation and ongoing professional development based on widely accepted, evidence-based competencies;
• Is aligned with and articulates into college degree programs;
• Includes alterative pathways to credentials;
• Connects the various service delivery program types;
• Provides appropriate compensation.

The report defines an early childhood professional development system that includes the infant-toddler workforce, highlights the six essential policy areas that need to be addressed and shares policy recommendations in context.

Zero to Three

2012

This report is an important contribution to the Women at Work Centenary Initiative. It gives a picture of where women stand today and how they have progressed in the world of work over the last 20 years, and of the root causes of inequalities and how they should be tackled based on what works and the guidance provided by international labour standards. It shows that, despite some encouraging advances, major gender gaps at work remain. Increasing gender parity in educational attainment does not prevent women from being concentrated in middle to lower-paid occupations that reflect traditional gender stereotypes and beliefs about women’s and men’s aspirations and capabilities. While sectoral and occupational segregation and differences in working time contribute to the gender wage gap, the report turns the spotlight on the role of the discrimination that further exacerbates labour market inequalities, including the persistent differences in access to social protection between women and men. The report also discusses the extent to which measures to recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid household and care work in families and societies affect women’s access to quality work and social protection. It shows how work-family policies aligned with international labour standards can help to remedy inequalities and to transform the gender-based division of labour at home.

The report aspires to support a renewed and reinforced global commitment towards gender equality at work, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is also hoped that the report will be of use to ILO constituents in their efforts to identify, in their specific contexts, the policies that are most conducive to the attainment of substantive equality between women and men, combining increased economic growth with decreased income inequality.

International Labor Organization

2016

This user friendly tool: i) addresses in detail the definition of a quality service, ii) provides a menu of available tools for the measurement of the quality of child care centers serving infants and toddlers ages 0 to 3 years (36 months), and iii) reports on the implementation process of these instruments in the region. The Toolkit presents a theoretical description of the tools and a guide explaining where, how, and when to use each tool, based on a detailed approach with different dimensions to consider in order for the quality measurement to be successful. This toolkit is designed to be a resource for researchers and technical staff of any discipline, working for governments and institutions interested in measuring and monitoring the quality of child care centers serving infants and toddlers ages 0 to 3 years aims to assist them in translating the discussion on improving child care quality into concrete actions and results.