The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (4.2) calls for all children to have access to Early Childhood Education (ECE), recognising the potential of ECE to promote children's development and ongoing national prosperity. Yet, in marketized systems both structural features (availability and affordability of services) and social factors (family knowledge and social connection) can drive inequitable access to the highest quality provision. In the current study, we analyse data for =77,113 children in Australia's new whole-population integrated database to ask: Who accesses ECE services? Australia's national quality rating of ECE services provided whole-of-country standard measurement of ECE quality. We find that, although Australia provides an income-scaled subsidy to families to enable ECE attendance, inequalities are seen in the quality of service accessed. Families experiencing socio-economic disadvantage and those living in regional and remote locations are under-represented in services rated high-quality. Recent immigrants, regardless of their economic status, are most likely to attend poorer quality services. These findings highlight the need to identify and remediate mechanisms preventing those most likely to benefit from the highest quality ECE from access. Such actions are critical to deliver on the promise of ECE to disrupt intergenerational disadvantage and enable sustainable national development.

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获得高质量的早期护理和教育：澳大利亚国家综合数据分析

联合国可持续发展目标（4.2）呼吁所有儿童都能接受幼儿教育（ECE），认识到幼儿教育在促进儿童发展和国家持续繁荣方面的潜力。然而，在市场化体系中，结构特征（服务的可用性和可负担性）和社会因素（家庭知识和社会联系）都可能导致获得最高质量服务的不平等。在当前的研究中，我们分析了澳大利亚新的全人口综合数据库中 = 77,113 名儿童的数据，以询问：谁获得了 ECE 服务？澳大利亚国家儿童早教服务质量评级提供了全国儿童早教质量的标准衡量。我们发现，尽管澳大利亚向家庭提供按收入分级的补贴，以使其能够参加儿童早教，但所获得的服务质量仍存在不平等。处于社会经济不利地位的家庭以及居住在偏远地区的家庭在高质量服务中的代表性不足。新移民，无论其经济状况如何，最有可能获得质量较差的服务。这些发现强调需要确定和纠正阻碍那些最有可能受益于最高质量儿童早教服务的机制。这些行动对于兑现欧洲经委会消除代际劣势和实现国家可持续发展的承诺至关重要。