In the past two decades, the demand for early childhood care and education has intensified orldwide. This demand has been influenced by rapidly changing social and demographic conditions. In the Caribbean region as elsewhere, more women are participating in the labour force for economic reasons: in two-parent families, rising cost of living and economic aspirations increasingly put pressure on both parents to work; single female heads of households have little option but to work in order to support their families. In addition, as women become more educated and qualified, fewer of them are content to limit their occupational interests to homemaking and childrearing. In the Caribbean, where as much as 30 to 50 percent of household heads are female, the trend toward out-of-the-home group care and education of young children is irreversible.