earticle

영어

This paper aims to analyze the relationships between early childhood education policies of 14 OECD countries and their national happiness level, using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method. The variables employed for this comparative study are GDP per capita, enrollment rate in early childhood education, amount of public budget per infant, ratio of total public fund for infants as percentage of total national budget, and national happiness level. The method used in this study is fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis by which the complexity of data sets regarding infant policy can be reduced and minimized. The analysis results show that there are four combinations of causal conditions in supporting high national happiness level and two combinations in supporting low national happiness level. It is important to point out that the approach employed in this study offers a new way to conduct comparative analysis of infant education statistics. Finally, this study puts forward policy implications to strengthen infant welfare policies in Korea, based on the comparative analysis of OECD statistics on early childhood.