Zohran Mamdani is making headlines with his proposal to offer free childcare for all middle class families with infants and toddlers. In this post I present and examine six challenges that New York faces in designing an effective admission system for unrestricted free childcare for this age group. I also discuss how potential solutions to these challenges might give policy makers an opportunity to address many well-founded criticisms of free childcare.

Photo: From the Guardian newspaper. May 4, 2025.

How do municipalities react to national policies that demand changes in distributions?

A controversial ‘‘better distribution in daycare institutions law’’ in Denmark in 2019 gave municipalities a choice to reform either childcare or admissions. I describe how Copenhagen chose ‘‘the hard way’’ and reformed childcare keeping its liberal admission policies intact. The long run outcomes of Denmark’s new ‘‘parallel society’’ laws, and the current outcomes in smaller Danish municipalities, are much less clear.

Painting: Oda Krohg, A Newspaper Subscriber, 1887. Photo: The National Museum, Oslo.

This post explains why centralized childcare admission systems may have ambiguous outcomes when municipalities offer two admission paths. The childcare system in Denmark, which is administered by 98 local municipalities, gives a useful example of this problem for centralized childcare admissions design. The evidence suggests that not all Danish municipalities lean the same way. The municipality of Copenhagen leans towards parental choice while nearby Tårnby appears to lean in the other direction.

Photo: The Waagepetersen Family by Wilhelm Bendzblog. SMK.

In Copenhagen, families seek childcare using a shared admission system. The principle of this shared admission system is simple: “They say when, we say who.” Could we apply this principle to waitlists for psychologists?

To understand Copenhagen’s ‘‘democratization’’ approach to childcare, I recommend a visit to Bologna, Italy, which uses a centralized childcare admission system that is different than Copenhagen’s. The different childcare admission systems gives us a useful channel to explain and understand the different approaches to childcare in the two cities.

What kinds of daycares do urban dwellers demand? Messy ones with outdoor play. Does daycare choice contribute to how Copenhagen has flipped the script relative to other cities?

Copenhagen neatly divides lanes for traffic, but why does Copenhagen not regulate how daycares divide infants and toddlers? A waitlist admission system works better if daycares have more flexibility. We compare the relevant regulations in Copenhagen, Toronto and Tokyo.

A major politician has suggested that Copenhagen unilaterally change daycare fees relative to neighboring municipalities. Does her policy depend on Copenhagen’s admission system? It does not hurt that more parents want to use daycare in the city center, and Copenhagen gets to decide who.

The United States does not have universal daycare, and admissions for public and private care occupy two different universes. Head start admission designers might take a closer look at private daycare admission design.