Wiesbaden (dpa/th) – More than every second toddler in Thuringia is looked after in a daycare center. The childcare rate for under-threes was 55.3 percent in March 2022, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden on Friday. It is thus significantly higher than the national average of only 35.5 percent. As of March 31, 2022, the Federal Office reported the highest care rate, ahead of Thuringia, from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (58.6 percent), Saxony-Anhalt (58.3 percent) and Brandenburg (56.7 percent).
Overall, the rate of 53.3 percent in eastern Germany is still higher than in the west at 31.8 percent. Among the West German federal states, Hamburg (49.2 percent) and Schleswig-Holstein (36.4 percent) are ahead. 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.
