In 2001 almost two out of three preschool children spent time in nonparental care each week. (See Table 3.5.) Their care providers are major influences in their lives. Many
FIGURE 3.2
working parents discover that quality and affordable care is very difficult to find. In some communities child care is hard to find at any cost. Shortages of child care for infants, sick children, children with special needs, and for school children before and after school pose problems for many parents.
Child Care during Nonstandard Hours
Many parents choose to have one parent work non-standard hours to allow both parents to provide child care at different times of the day. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics ("Workers on Flexible and Shift Schedules in 2001," Press Release, April 18, 2002, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/flex.nr0.htm [accessed July 10, 2004]), in 2001 twenty-nine million workers, or 28.8%, worked flexible hours and were able to vary their work hours to fit their schedules. That number was nearly twice as many workers as ten years earlier. Flexible schedules were most common among professionals, and were more common among white workers (30.0%) than African-American (21.2%) or Hispanic workers (19.8%).
On the other hand, the percentage of those who worked an evening or overnight shift had fallen from 18% in 1991 to 14.5% in 2001. When asked why they worked a non-daytime schedule, 8.9% of shift or flexible schedule workers answered they did so for better family or child-care arrangements. (See Table 3.7.)
Regulations and Quality of Care
In 1988 Congress passed the Family Support Act (FSA) (PL 100-485), which included several provisions affecting Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and the regulation of child-care services. The legislation specified that by 1990 all states had to establish child-care programs for AFDC recipients, including the guarantee of child care for families participating in the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training programs (JOBS). The FSA also made grants available to states to improve their child-care licensing and registration requirements.
Federal assistance to low-income families to pay for child care eroded in the late twentieth century, however, at the same time that the government imposed requirements that more low-income parents work. The 1996 welfare reform law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PL 104-193), eliminated the guarantee that families on welfare would receive subsidized child care and replaced it with the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) to states. While the legislation gave states wide discretion in the use of these funds, it also imposed penalties if states failed to meet criteria for getting low-income parents into the workforce.
This legislation pushed the issue of regulation of child-care facilities to the forefront. In 1989 the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) initiated the Study of Early Child Care (SECC). This comprehensive ongoing longitudinal study was designed to answer many questions about the relationship between child-care experiences and children's developmental outcomes. The 1999 phase of the study examined whether the amount of time children spent in child care affected their interactions with their mothers. Results showed that the number of hours infants and toddlers spent in child care was modestly linked to the sensitivity of the mother to her child, as well as to the engagement of the child with the mother in play activities. Children in consistent quality day care showed less problem behavior, while those who switched day-care
TABLE 3.5
| Percentage of preschool children by type of care arrangement and child and family characteristics, 2001 | |||||
| Type of nonparental care arrangement | |||||
| Care in a home1 | |||||
| Characteristic | Parental care only | Total in nonparental care2 | By a relative | By a nonrelative | Center-based program3 |
| 1Relative and nonrelative care can take place in either the child's own home or another home. | |||||
| 2Some children participate in more than one type of nonparental care arrangement. Thus, details do not sum to the total percentage of children in nonparental care. | |||||
| 3Center-based programs include day care centers, pre-kindergartens, nursery schools, Head Start programs, and other early childhood education programs. | |||||
| 4Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race. | |||||
| 5Children without a mother in the home are excluded from estimates of mother's highest level of education and mother's employment status. | |||||
| Note: Some children participate in more than one type of arrangement, so the sum of all arrangement types exceeds the total percentage in nonparental care. Center-based programs include day care centers, pre-kindergartens, nursery schools, Head Start programs, and other early childhood education programs. Relative and nonrelative care can take place in either the child's own home or another home. | |||||
| SOURCE: Adapted from "Table POP8A. Child Care: Percentage of Children from Birth through Age 6, Not Yet in Kindergarten, by Type of Care Arrangement and Child and Family Characteristics, 1995 and 2001," in America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2004, Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2004, http://childstats.gov/ac2004/tables/pop8a.asp (accessed August 24, 2004) | |||||
| Total | 39 | 61 | 23 | 16 | 33 |
| Age/grade in school | |||||
| Ages 0–2 | 48 | 52 | 23 | 18 | 17 |
| Ages 3–6, not yet in kindergarten | 26 | 74 | 23 | 14 | 56 |
| Race and Hispanic origin | |||||
| White, non-Hispanic | 38 | 62 | 20 | 19 | 35 |
| Black, non-Hispanic | 26 | 74 | 35 | 13 | 40 |
| Hispanic4 | 52 | 48 | 23 | 12 | 21 |
| Other, non-Hispanic | 35 | 65 | 23 | 15 | 37 |
| Poverty status | |||||
| Below poverty | 45 | 55 | 27 | 10 | 27 |
| At or above poverty | 37 | 63 | 22 | 18 | 35 |
| Mother's highest level of education5 | |||||
| Less than high school | 55 | 45 | 22 | 8 | 21 |
| High school graduate/GED | 42 | 58 | 26 | 13 | 28 |
| Vocational/technical or some college | 37 | 63 | 25 | 15 | 35 |
| College graduate | 31 | 69 | 17 | 24 | 42 |
| Mother's employment status5 | |||||
| 35 hours or more per week | 15 | 85 | 34 | 26 | 42 |
| Less than 35 hours per week | 29 | 71 | 32 | 20 | 36 |
| Looking for work | 57 | 43 | 17 | 10 | 25 |
| Not in the labor force | 68 | 32 | 7 | 5 | 24 |
arrangements showed more problem behaviors. Children in quality care centers had higher cognitive and language development than those in lower-quality centers.
As more children receive nonparental care at younger ages, research into the importance of quality care has shown that poor care at young ages can lead to poor adjustment and performance in school (Sheri Azer et al., National Center for Early Development and Learning, "Regulation of Child Care," Briefs, vol. 2, no. 1, Winter 2002). But regulation of child-care facilities varies considerably from state to state. (See Table 3.8.) No system for monitoring unlicensed care exists, and in thirty-four states child-care homes with fewer than three children are not regulated at all. In 2001 only 14% of child-care centers and 13% of family child-care homes nationwide were rated as good quality, and a large proportion were rated as being of poor quality and probably harmful to children. While there had been some improvements in the quality of child care available since 1986, especially in child/staff ratios and training requirements, the authors made several recommendations, including:
- All child-care facilities should be licensed by states, and states should employ enough staff to adequately enforce licensing standards in child-care facilities.
- Staff of child-care facilities should have training specific to the age group they supervise.
- Directors of child-care facilities should have management and child development training.
- All child-care workers should be required to complete annual training.
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