This article argues that ER systems in the care sub-sectors in both countries offer social partners opportunities to influence job quality and that the trade unions’ efforts have played important roles in limiting wage dispersion and in recent wage increases. Marketization is a challenge to job quality, especially in the Netherlands, but even in the most marketized sub-sector, the Dutch ECEC, ER actors and institutions have limited the deterioration of job quality. Nevertheless, wages are still relatively low for some groups, and the social partners have not been able to prevent job quality problems such as work intensification. This mirrors that factors other than ER and marketization in and beyond the trilemma, including budget constrain and labour shortage, also influence job quality and constrain the actions of social partners.