Low-income mothers as childcare consumers

M. Lee Van Horn

Civitan International Research Center

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Paper presented at the biannual conference of the Society for Research in Child Development, April 15^th 1999, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Correspondence should be addressed to M. Lee Van Horn, Civitan International Research Center – UAB, 1719 6^th Ave. S. Rm 235c, Birmingham AL 35294. Or by E-mail to Vanhorn@uab.edu.

Abstract

Low-income mothers as childcare consumers

Community based research has shown that even small differences in childcare quality are related to improved outcomes (Burchinal et. al., 1996). Even if a parent has limited childcare choices, their decision still matters. Few research studies have looked at parental choice of care. Those that have found that parents were most concerned about having competent staff, educational activities, and compatibility of values (Bradbard, Endsley, & Readdick, 1983; Long et. al., 1996). They conclude that the childcare selection process is elusive for parents.

Parents can help their children by choosing the highest possible care available, because research indicates that quality of care low-income children receive can promote optimal development. It is important for parents to distinguish differences in quality between placements. Also assessed in this study were parents’ perceptions of their current childcare. For parents to be competent consumers they need not only to be able to assess childcare quality, but to monitor and have a realistic view of their childcare.

Subjects. This study was part of a statewide evaluation of Alabama’s Child Care Management Agencies. Subjects were randomly chosen from lists of all parents receiving childcare subsidies and sent a questionnaire. Of those sent 1001 were returned (44%). Subjects were predominantly African American (73%), single (89%), and working (77%).

Measures. Reasons for choosing care: Open-ended responses. Respondents listed the three things that were most important to them when choosing a childcare placement in order of importance. They were given one line for each response. Responses were coded with 24 descriptive codes. These content-based codes were created through a review of parents’ responses. The codes were then placed in 6 general categories by consensus of 4 child-care researchers.

Quality of Care from a Parents Point-of-View (Emlen, 1997). This instrument was designed to assess quality of care by having parents’ rate their childcare on 12 items such as "My child is treated with respect."

Study Aims

· To systematically describe aspects of childcare that are important to mothers receiving childcare subsidies in choosing care.

· To look at how parent characteristics are related to choice of childcare.

• To examine parents’ perceptions of their current childcare.

Results

Describing parent’s responses. Parent’s responses to the open-ended questions were also examined (See Table 1). Caregiver’s ability with children and generic "quality" were most often listed as the most important reasons for choosing childcare.

Predicting parent’s reasons for choosing care. Two sets of analyses were performed to look at the relationship between other parent variables and reasons for choosing care. The first, was a set of six exploratory logistic analyses (N=501) in which child characteristics, maternal characteristics, and environmental characteristics were regressed on each of the six reasons for choosing care. A backwards selection procedure was used because of the large number of predictor variables. The final models from the exploratory analyses were then repeated on a separate confirmatory sample (N=500). These results found no variables that predicted parents’ childcare choice consistently in the exploratory and confirmatory samples. Parents’ perceptions of their childcare. The Emlen scale was scored by taking the mean of the 12 items. A histogram of the scores (See Figure 1) shows that parent’s responses were very highly skewed, almost 50% of parents gave the highest possible response to all questions.

Conclusion. What parents say they looked for in childcare provides some grounds for encouragement. These parents are most concerned about features associated with quality, caregiver’s ability and "quality" itself. What was lacking from their responses was an indication that they knew what aspects of care are important parts of quality. The fact that no parental variables were related their choices of care also is an indication that those choices occur at random. Finally, parents’ perceptions of the quality of their child’s placement are an indication that they do not adequately assess quality.

If low-income parents cannot adequately judge the quality of their childcare placement when making the choice or while their child is in care, they cannot make a decision based on quality. The fact that parents do appear to care about quality suggests an intervention in which parents being assessed for eligibility for childcare subsidies could receive some material and training on choosing high-quality childcare. Providing parents with checklists for assessing quality has been shown to allow them to make ratings of childcare quality similar to those of experts.

Table 1. Parent’s responses to open-ended questions by category.