Target centrali e finanza locale. Il caso degli asili nido in Italia

[Autom. eng. transl.] Is it really true that in Italy women work little because there are not enough nurseries? Italy is far from the European objectives in terms of services for early childhood and within it there are marked territorial differences in this regard. For this reason, minimum supply levels set by the central government have been discussed for years. But is it enough to act on the supply side to fill our delays? Taking these questions into account, the volume provides an in-depth picture of the evolution of the public offering of nursery places from 1998 to 2008 thanks to an original dataset built on the basis of municipal data and ad hoc surveys. The analysis shows that the demand does not always (and not everywhere) follow the offer. This suggests abandoning a strategy focused on setting national targets, to follow a flexible approach, perhaps at the macro area level, in which the public and private sectors can integrate to cope with the strong differences in demand at the local level.