Childcare services are increasingly put forward as one of the most important policy levers to combat poverty and inequality. However, higher income families use childcare services to a much larger extent than lower income families. Almost all European countries increased expenditures on childcare over the past years, but has an ever-increasing public spending on childcare provision led to more equality in its use? In this article, the relationship between spending and childcare use as well as between spending and inequality in childcare use over the period 2006-12 is empirically analyzed using a random effects model drawing on country-level panel data (n = 156), derived from the EU-SILC and OECD SOCX databases. Since governments can spend money in different ways, it is discussed whether a public or a market-based strategy to subsidize childcare provision is related to more equality. The results suggest that more spending leads to higher levels of childcare use, but not directly to lower levels of inequality. For achieving equity in childcare use, government investment should lead to an expansion of childcare places across the income distribution. The findings allow the formulation of new hypotheses regarding the role of the private market in childcare services provision. (author abstract)