At the time of writing in early 2021, New Zealand had remained relatively unscathed, both social and economically, from the COVID-19 pandemic. Swift action to close the borders to non-residents, mandatory isolation coupled with an early lockdown of ten weeks from 25 March 2020 positioned the country as having instigated one of the best public health responses to the virus in the world (Robert, 2020).

However, like other parts of the world the childcare industry in New Zealand has been significantly affected during this time. Childcare services across the country closed from 25 March until 14 May 2020, with full health restrictions only lifted by 8 June. Although childcare is a relatively volatile business in normal conditions, the rapidly changing levels of parental demand for childcare in response to the pandemic has turned any sense of certainty on its head. The significant drop in both the length of hours and the number of children participating in the system has heightened increased reliance on the state to uphold the childcare infrastructure in the face of a crisis. While the uniqueness of the COVID-19 situation cannot be overstated, in the New Zealand context the severity of some of the problems beleaguering the sector can be linked back to state-led marketization of the sector.

Although attendance in childcare services stopped during periods of lockdown, concern was raised by sector advocates that fewer children would return to services after restrictions were lifted. A report into the impact of COVID-19 on the ECE sector in New Zealand noted that 55 per cent of managers who responded rated a prolonged drop in attendance as the most significant long-term problem for their sustainability. Cognisant of this issue, the MoE maintained a detailed weekly account of attendance rates across the country, noting the regional variability. From this data it was found that children in formalized ECE services attended 111 hours less on average than for the same period in 2019 (MoE, 2020). While the strong public health response meant that the social and economic effects of the pandemic have been minimized, and attendance has strengthened again to almost the same levels as pre-COVID, there remain notable differences in the amount of hours children have returned for and a reduction in the number of children actually starting ECE services.