Netherlands leads EU in number of kids attending daycare

Three quarters of Dutch children under the age of three years attended some form of daycare in 2014, thereby putting the Netherlands at the head of Europe with most toddlers in daycare, Statistics Netherlands reports. In all of Europe, about half of children up to the age of 3 attended some form of daycare, such as nurseries, kindergartens or playgroups. Parents in western Europe are more likely to send their kids to daycare than parents in eastern Europe. For example, 27 percent of Bulgarian kids attended daycare, compared to the Netherlands' 77 percent. Statistics Netherlands also noticed a trend with how kids in countries that make extensive use of child care, spend fewer hours in daycare. According to the statistics office, this is because in these countries people with kids work part-time more often.