Parents' Choice of Day Care Services

Abstract

In this article, findings are summarized from a multivariate analysis of types and amount of child care used by a national sample of parents with children under 14. Findings and policy implications are presented in four areas: a comparison of type versus hours used as alternative indicators of child care need, an analysis of the importance of location versus caregiver relatedness among users of home arrangements, the relationship between household structure and use of care, and the importance of household income as related to cost of child care. Based on the results of the study, it is concluded that the traditional link between employment status and use of formal group care is misleading, since being employed is critical to the amoung of care used, but not to the type chosen. It is emphasized that the complexities observed among the several household characteristics and the use of care strongly suggest that parents are in the best position to judge the amount or type of child care arrangements needed by their families. Based on this conclusion, public policy that rationalizes involvement in day care on the basis of support for family child rearing and economic functioning should permit maximum latitude to the range of choices available to parents.

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References

and Wendy Gray , The Social Work Profession and Day Care Services: Social Policy Issues, 1890-1990 (Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, 1980).

2. Margaret Malone , Child Day Care: The Federal Role, Congressional Research Service Issue Brief no. 1 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 1981), p. 1.

For a discussion from an economist's perspective, see C. Russell Hill , “Private Demand for Child Care,” Evaluation Quarterly, 2(4):323 (Fall 1978).

4. For a review of attempts to pass comprehensive legislation during the 1970s, see Gilbert Y. Stener , The Futility of Family Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1981).

and Richard L. Shortlidge and Patricia Brito , How Women Arrange for the Care of Their Children While They Work: A Study of Child Care Arrangements, Costs and Preferences (Columbus: Ohio State University, Center for Human Resource Research, 1977).

and U.S. Bureau of the Census , “Daytime Care of Children: October 1974 and February 1975,” in Current Population Reports, series P-20, no. 285 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976).

and Westat Research, Inc. , Day Care Survey—1970: Summary Report and Basic Analysis (Rockville, MD: Westat Research, 1971).

8. For complete discussion of methodology, see Unco, Inc. , Current Patterns of Child Care Use in the United States (Arlington, VA: Unco, 1976), ch. 2.

9. For interpretation of results with respect to the economic theory of household decision making, see John C. Moore, Jr. , Parent Decisions on the Use of Day Care and Early Education Services: An Analysis of Amount Used and Type Chosen (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1980), pp. 33-34.

10.

10. See, for example, the National Commission on Families and Public Policies , Families and Public Policies in the United States (Columbus, OH: National Conference on Social Welfare, 1978), pp. 46-47.

11.

11. Editorial staff , Child Welfare, “What Is Family Day Care?” 54(9):613 (Sept. 1975).

12.

For a personal account of the day nursery experience and the biases evident in the early 1900s, see Ethel S. Beer , Working Mothers and the Day Nursery (Mystic, CT: Lawrence Verry, 1970).

13.

13. Excerpted from President Richard Nixon's message vetoing the Economic Opportunity Amendments of 1971, as reprinted in ed. Pamela Roby , Child Care—Who Cares? (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 737.