Halle/Wiesbaden (dpa/sa) - Saxony-Anhalt has the second-highest day care rate in Germany. More than every second toddler under the age of three (58.3 percent) was cared for in a daycare center in March 2022, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Friday in Wiesbaden. Only in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is the rate slightly higher at 58.6 percent.
Nationwide, the care rate in March 2022 was 35.5 percent, as the Federal Statistical Office further announced. In the previous year, the rate was 34.4 percent. The Federal Office explained that the long-term trend of increasing quotas, which was interrupted in 2021 in the corona pandemic, is continuing.
At 53.3 percent, the rate in eastern Germany is still significantly higher than in the west at 31.8 percent. Among the West German federal states, Hamburg achieved the highest rate with 49.2 percent, followed by Schleswig-Holstein (36.4 percent). At the bottom of the national rankings were Baden-Württemberg (29.9 percent) and Bremen (30.2 percent).
The care rate is the proportion of children cared for in day-care facilities (e.g. in day-care centers) or in publicly funded child day care (e.g. a publicly funded childcare place with a childminder) of all children in this age group.
There were around 59,300 day-care centers nationwide, 1.4 percent more than at the same time last year. The number of employees rose by 3.2 percent to around 730,800. Around 41,900 childminders were registered, 2.7 percent fewer than in the previous year.
