Early Childhood Care in France: Impediments to the Professionalization of a Little-Institutionalized Feminine Occupation

In the early-childhood care sector, the occupation of home-based childcare providers is especially subject to the familialist paradigm that assigns women from modest backgrounds with little formal education to this almost exclusively feminine line of work. This study focuses more specifically on home-based childcare providers working in rural and suburban areas, spaces that are marked by isolation and a lack of interlocutors. There are many limitations to the occupation’s professionalization model (Aballea, 2005; Alberola, 2009). After providing an overview of the institutional norm of nursery school as it contrasts with the informal situation of home-based childcare, analysis shifts to three obstacles to expressing demand for training that are indices of low professionalization: the place and space of work, little social and familial arrangements, and work skills. Finally, in counterpoint, the article explores the role of the employment contract with parents in formalizing a feminine occupation that is still seen as a customary familial service (Dupraz, 2008).