chapter 3
CARING FOR CHILDREN

SOCIETAL CHANGES AND WORKING MOTHERS

In the second half of the twentieth century the "stayat-home mom" became less common. In the early twenty-first century women with young children were much more likely to work outside the home than they had been three decades previously. In 1976 31% of women ages fifteen to forty-four with a child under twelve months old worked; by 2003 that percentage had increased to 53.7%, down from a high of 58.7% in 1998 (Fertility of American Women: June 2002, U.S. Census Bureau, 2003, and "Labor Force Participation of Mothers with Infants in 2003," Monthly Labor Review, April 22, 2004). In 2003 62.8% of mothers with children under age six and 77.8% of mothers with school-age children worked outside the home. (See Table 3.1.)

Legislation passed in the late 1970s made it more possible for women to return to work after the birth of a child. In 1976 tax code changes allowed families a tax credit on child care costs, making it more financially feasible for women to return to work. In 1978 the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed, making it illegal for employers to discriminate in hiring, firing, promotions, or pay levels based on pregnancy or childbirth. And in 1993 the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was passed, requiring employers to give eligible employees up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave for childbearing or family care each year.

Societal changes also contributed to the greater number of women with young children participating in the labor force. In Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns, 1961–1995 (U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P70-79, November 2001), Kirsten Smith and her colleagues reviewed the changing demographic profile of first-time mothers between the 1960s and 1990s to explain in part the increase. The report emphasized that during that period the incidence of first-time motherhood at age thirty or older tripled, and that first-time mothers in the 1990s tended to be better educated than their 1960 counterparts. These older, well-educated mothers often viewed their jobs as long-term careers and believed time lost could adversely affect their ability to hold a position and earn promotions and could decrease contributions to retirement funds.

Furthermore, the increasing number of single mothers meant that more women must work to support their families. In 1970 3,410,000 women maintained single-parent households; by 2002 that number had almost tripled, to 9,969,000. Changes in government programs providing assistance to poor families also resulted in increasing numbers of single mothers entering the workforce. In 1996 the federal government abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and replaced it with a new program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). TANF placed a two-year time limit on benefits, requiring poor parents to work even if they had to place young children in day care. In 2003 two-thirds (65.4%) of single mothers with children under three years old were in the labor force, with a 16.7% unemployment rate. (See Table 3.2.)

Married women have also entered the workforce in larger numbers. A decline in men's real wages plus a rising cost of living has led some two-parent families to decide to maintain two incomes in order to meet financial obligations and pay for their children's future college expenses. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, 2003 Annual Social and Economic Supplement, the median income in 2002 for married couples with the wife in the paid labor force was $87,496, significantly higher than the $58,379 median income for married-couple families in which the wife was not in the paid labor force. Table 3.1 shows that 68.6% of married women with children under eighteen were in the labor force in 2003, and Table 3.2 shows that 56.8% of married women with children under age three were in the labor force in that year. Many families have come to depend upon women's economic contributions to the household.

TABLE 3.1

WHO CARES FOR AMERICA'S CHILDREN?

School-Age Children

The Forum on Child and Family Statistics reported in America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2003 that about half of children in kindergarten through eighth grade were cared for by someone other than their parents in 2001. Younger children were more likely to receive home-based care or center-based care for before or after-school hours; children in grades four and up were less likely to receive these types of care and more likely to care for themselves. (See Figure 3.1.) Only 2.8% of children in kindergarten through third grade cared for

themselves regularly, while 25% of older children did. (See Table 3.3.)

self-care—"latchkey kids." The phrase "latchkey kids" is used to describe children left alone or unsupervised either during the day or before or after school. These are children five to fourteen years of age whose parents report "child cares for self" as either the primary or secondary child care arrangement. In 1999 6.4 million grade-school-age children cared for themselves on a regular basis without adult supervision. (See Table 3.4.) Most of these children are twelve or older, but 443,000 children eight years of age and younger regularly took care of themselves. And the number of children in self-care may be rising; in 2002 the Annie E. Casey Foundation estimated in Kids Count Data Book: State Profiles of Child Wellbeing that eight million children between ages five and fourteen spend some time alone at home each week.

twenty-first-century community learning centers. More than half of all families use after-school programs, and in many families parents rely on after-school care to provide a safe and nurturing place for their children while they are working. In response to concerns about the availability of quality after-school programs, the U.S. Department of Education initiated Twenty-First-Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC), authorized under Title X, Part I, of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and reauthorized under Title IV, Part B, of the No Child Left Behind Act. This initiative gives grants to low-performance middle and elementary schools in rural and urban areas to provide after-school opportunities for their students, both educational and

TABLE 3.2

recreational. The budget for the CCLC program was raised from $1 million in 1997 to $40 million in 1998, $453 million in 2000, and $846 million in 2001. In fiscal year 2004 Congress appropriated $999 million in funding for CCLC. According to the U.S. Department of Education's Web site, by 2003 CCLC supported after-school programs in about 6,800 rural and inner-city public schools in 1,420 communities.

However, Duncan Chaplin and Michael J. Puma, in "What 'Extras' Do We Get with Extracurriculars? Technical Research Consideration" (Urban Institute, September 30, 2003), offered a cautionary note about claims that these programs may give disadvantaged students an academic boost. The researchers found that extracurricular activities included in after-school programs that do not specifically target academic outcomes (for example, arts, music, drama, and language classes) had no affect on academic achievement. The authors suggested more rigorous evaluation of after-school programs that target disadvantaged youth be conducted before further money is spent on these programs, as that money might be spent on potentially more effective educational programs for disadvantaged youth.

Children Younger Than Five (Preschoolers)

In 2002 mothers with children under twelve months old were much less likely to be employed full-time than were mothers with children older than twelve months. Roughly a third of mothers with an infant (34%) were employed full-time, compared to more than half of mothers with older children (51%). (See Figure 3.2.) Almost

FIGURE 3.1

half the mothers with an infant were not in the labor force at all (45%), while only a little more than a quarter of mothers with older children (28%) were not in the labor force. Unemployment and part-time employment were relatively equal in the two groups of mothers.

In 2001 52% of children under age two and 74% of children ages three to six were in nonparental care at least some of the time. (See Table 3.5.) These preschoolers were more likely to be cared for in a center-based program (33%) than any other child-care arrangement. Relatives provided care for 23% of preschoolers and nonrelatives for 16% of preschoolers in 2001.

But care arrangements for preschoolers varied greatly according to the age of the child. As their children grow from infancy to school age, working mothers often change child-care arrangements to meet the needs of their children, their families, and their employers. Making child-care arrangements for infants and toddlers is often more difficult than for older children, because fewer organized child-care facilities admit infants and very young children, primarily due to the cost involved in hiring a sufficient number of workers and adapting facilities to care adequately for babies. In addition, many parents prefer, if possible, to keep their infants in a home environment as long as possible. In 2001 only 17% of children under age two were in center-based programs, compared with 56% of older preschoolers. (See Table 3.5.)

FACTORS THAT AFFECT CHILD CARE

Preschool Child Care

racial and ethnic differences. In 2001 African-American and Hispanic mothers of preschoolers relied more heavily on relatives to provide child care than did white mothers. Of those children in nonparental care, 34% of African-American preschoolers and 23% of Hispanic preschoolers were cared for by relatives, compared with 20% of white preschoolers. (See Table 3.5.) Both white (54%) and African-American preschoolers (55%) were more likely to be cared for by nonrelatives or in center-based programs than were Hispanic preschoolers (32%).

poverty makes a difference. In 2002 72.8% of preschoolers with employed mothers were regularly in nonparental care, but the type of care varied according to the income levels of those families. Jeffrey Capizzano and Gina Adams found in "Snapshots of America's Families III: Children in Low-Income Families Are Less Likely to Be in Center-Based Child Care" (Urban Institute, No. 16, November 2003) that preschoolers from lower-income families (families with an income less than 200% of the poverty line) were less likely to be in center-based care (24.9%) than children from higher-income families (31.2%). (See Table 3.6.) The authors suggest the lower percentage of lower-income children in center care reflects the lower cost of home-based care. At the same

TABLE 3.3

time, they argue that there is evidence that quality, center-based care plays a big role in helping preschoolers make a successful transition to school, and that low-income children are in large part missing this opportunity. The Children's Defense Fund also stressed the importance of providing low-income families with child care assistance to help their children succeed ("Good Child Care Assistance Policies Help Low-Income Working Families Afford Quality Care and Help Children Succeed," in Key Facts: Essential Information about Child Care, Early Education and School-Age Care, Children's Defense Fund, 2003).

regional differences. Using data from the 1997 National Survey of America's Families (NSAF), the Urban Institute calculated the number of hours that preschool children spend in institutional care by state (The Hours That Children under Five Spend in Child Care: Variation across States, Jeffery Capizzano and Gina Adams, http://newfederalism.urban.org/html/series_b/b8/b8.html [accessed July 9, 2004]). Nationwide, 41% of preschool children with employed mothers were in institutional care for thirty-five or more hours per week and another 25% were in care fifteen to thirty-four hours per week. The percentages vary widely by state. Alabama and Mississippi had the highest percentages of children in full-time care (59% and 56%, respectively). Texas also ranked high, at 46%. On the other hand, California, Massachusetts, and Washington had the lowest percentages of children in full-time care, with fewer than one in three children in care for thirty-five hours or more per week (29%, 29%, and 33%, respectively). California and Washington had the highest proportions of children who spent no time in child care (30% and 26%, respectively).

TABLE 3.4

FORMAL CHILD CARE FACILITIES

While no comprehensive data exist on the types or quality of child-care facilities in the United States, the Children's Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based private national educational nonprofit organization, estimated that in 2004 there were 117,284 regulated child-care centers in the fifty states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands, a 26% percent increase since 1991. These facilities, which most often provide a school-like environment, serve five to six million children. Many more unlicensed child care facilities exist, but because they are not regulated, no reliable statistics are collected.

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

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.

THE COST OF CHILD CARE

In 2000 the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) published The High Cost of Child Care Puts Quality Care out of Reach for Many Families (Washington, DC), which surveyed child-care costs across the country. The survey showed that child care could easily cost a family $4,000 to $6,000 per year, and in some areas more than $10,000 per year. Child-care costs for a four-year-old ranged from $3,380 annually in Mississippi to a high of $8,121 in Massachusetts.

TABLE 3.6

TABLE 3.7

For a twelve-month-old child, annual costs jumped to $3,692 in Mississippi and $12,978 in Massachusetts. And child care in urban care centers was so expensive that it could cost more than public college tuition.

Low-Income Families

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a low-income family with two parents working full time, fifty-two weeks a year, at the federal minimum wage earned $21,424 per year before taxes. The Children's Defense Fund estimated that such families could afford to pay no more than 10% of their income ($2,142 annually) on child care. The Census Bureau estimated that in 1999 the average family with a preschool child spent 8.6% of its income on child-care (Who's Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 1999, January 23, 2003). Even if able to save 10% of their income for child care, many low-income families were forced to enroll their children in low-cost, and often poor-quality, child-care centers. As a result, these children spent much of their day in unstimulating and possibly unsafe environments.

GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT

Recognizing that child-care assistance helps contribute to a productive workforce, federal and state governments subsidize some child care for those on welfare and for low-income working families. However, the Children's Defense Fund noted in State Developments in Child Care, Early Education, and School-Age Care, 2001 that only one in seven children eligible for child-care assistance received it.

Block Grants

In 1990 the 101st Congress passed what many consider the nation's first comprehensive child-care legislation—The Child Care and Development Block Grant, or CCDBG (PL 101-508). Federal funding for the CCDBG for fiscal year 2004 was almost $2.1 billion. Money is allocated to

TABLE 3.8

states based on a state's per capita income, the number of children under age five, and the number of children receiving free or reduced-price lunches through the National School Lunch Program. Highlights of the law include:

• States must use 70% of grant funds to assist families in paying for care.
• At least 4% of funds must be used to improve availability and quality of child care.

• Working parents qualify for assistance if they have children under the age of thirteen and family income is no more than 85% of the state's median income.

Head Start

Perhaps the best-known and most successful government-funded child-care program is Head Start, a federal program begun in 1965 under the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The free program provides early education, health care, social services, and free meals to preschool children in families whose incomes are below the poverty line or who receive public assistance. Head Start operates in every state, and in fiscal year 2002 it served 912,345 children. The Children's Defense Fund reported in Key Facts: Essential Information about Child Care, Early Education and School-Age Care (2003) that the program has been shown to provide many benefits, including a greater likelihood that children would do well in school and graduate from high school.

Tax Credits

The Federal Dependent Care Tax Credit helps families by allowing them to claim an income tax credit for part of their child-care expenses for children under the age of thirteen that enabled parents to work outside the home. The credit is on a sliding scale, ranging from 20% to 35% of qualified expenses; therefore, lower-income families receive slightly larger credits. In 2003 parents could claim up to $3,000 in qualified expenses for one child or $6,000 for two or more children.

Family Leave

In 1993 Congress enacted the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA; PL 103-3), requiring employers with fifty or more employees to give unpaid time off—twelve weeks in any twelve-month period—to employees to care for newborn or newly adopted children, sick family members, or for personal illness. The employee must be returned to the same position—or one equivalent in pay, benefits, and other terms of employment—and must receive uninterrupted health benefits. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that prior to this legislation fewer than 25% of all workers received family leave benefits and most of those who did worked in establishments of more than one hundred employees.

Jane Waldfogel reported in "Family and Medical Leave: Evidence from the 2000 Surveys" (Monthly Labor Review, September 2001) that in 2000 17.9% percent of FMLA leave takers took their leave to care for a newborn, newly adopted, or newly placed foster child; 9.8% used it to care for a sick child; and 7.8% used it as maternity or disability time. Of all employees covered by the FMLA with children eighteen months or younger, 45.1% of men and 75.8% of women had taken an FMLA leave in the previous eighteen months.

EMPLOYER INVOLVEMENT

Employers are increasingly providing family leave beyond the requirements of the FMLA as well as providing

FIGURE 3.3

assistance to employees in finding child care. Employers have found that providing such benefits can pay off in increased productivity, worker recruitment and retention, and community goodwill. According to Pilot Survey on the Incidence of Child Care Resource and Referral Services in June 2000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2000), 13.8% of workers in private industry, as well as in state and local government, had access to child-care resource and referral services. Most often these services were provided to employees by outside resources rather than directly by their employers. People working for large establishments (employing five thousand or more workers) fare best in access to child-care resources. (See Figure 3.3.)