Household payments for kindergarten

Name: Household payments for kindergarten
Topic: Education

Division for Price Statistics

The survey results are published at municipality- and national level.

Frequency: Annual survey

Timeliness: Statistics based on January figures are published approximately three months after time of measurement.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The purpose of this statistic is to map the average household payment for kindergarten. The survey was first established in 1992 on assignment from the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs (now Ministry of Education and Research). The survey is compiled on the basis of data collected in January each year. As of January 2003 the variables are weighted aggregations of public and private kindergartens. Numbers published in the series "Notater" including August 2002 consisted only of unweighted average numbers. As of January 2003 we no longer made a division between private kindergartens which receive municipal subsidy and the ones that do not. In 2007, the survey underwent a considerable change where electronic data opened for reporting from all municipalities through KOSTRA. The questionnaire was expanded in 2007 to include more questions concerning additional fees and rate reductions in the public kindergartens. Questionnaires to the private kindergartens were also somewhat equally expanded. From 2016, the data source changed from KOSTRA to BASIL. As a consequence of this, we now get self-reported data from all kindergartens, as well as from all municipalities.

The survey is used to assess the price leve of housholds payment for kindergatens, though mainly by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, and by some of the municipalities.

A report is compiled to the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training based on the same data material as the survey. The same datamaterial is also included in the consumer price index.

The Statistics Act of June 21, 2019 number 32

The survey includes all municipalities and all kindergartens in Norway.

Electronic surveys through BASIL for all registered kindergartens in Norway, as well as for all municipalities.

Both the municipalities and the kindergartens report on an electronic survey through BASIL. They report annually, with a deadline in January.

Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data. Editing is performed in Python for both municipal and private kindergartens. The data is controlled towards last surveys answers to enable us to capture deviations. Internet is used as a source or the private kindergarten is contacted to correct logical errors, or to check for major deviation.

We calculate an average monthly household payment per child from the data that we receive. We use data on household income, how many children get sibling moderation, free places, local maximum fees, cost fees, and other fees.

The use of data are in correspondance with the requirements from The Norwegian Data Protection Authorities. The information will be stored or properly annihilated.

Houshold payments in the public kindergartens are comparable from 1992 to 2007 on municipality level. The aggregated levels are not comparable due to the introduction of weights in January 2003. From January 2017, former time series were cancelled, as the establishment of income graded fees nationally made point estimates less interesting.

Individual errors may arise from individual reporters understand the questions differently, or when we have partial non-reporting from kindergartens. In some cases, this is difficult to discover during data revision, while in other cases, we are able to discover it through logical tests and large changes from previous years. We do not, however, have any indication that we have a systematic problem in this regard.

Since we receive data from all municipalities and all kindergartens, we should not have a selection bias. In January 2018, about 2.9 per cent of all kindergartens report that they do not have any children. Most these are drop-in kindergartens. We do not know very much about these kindergartens, and they are not a part of our calculations. Since they are such a small share of the total amount of registered kindergartens, they should not be a problem.