Preferences, vote choice, and the politics of social investment: Addressing the puzzle of unequal benefits of childcare provision

Abstract Research on the politics of social investment finds public opinion to be highly supportive expansive reforms and expects this support matter for expanding investment. Expanding investment, it is argued, should particularly attractive left-wing voters parties because egalitarian potential such policies. However, few studies have examined what extent individual preferences concerning really politically. In paper, I address research gap crucial policy field childcare by examining how individual-level provision translate into voting behavior. Based original survey data from eight European countries, find that expand spending indeed electoral left. link votes turns out socially biased. Childcare are much more decisive further up individuals in income distribution. This imperfect transmission behavior implies political could incentives target benefits their affluent voters. My findings help explain why governments frequently fail reduce inequality access seemingly provision.