IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v34y2012i10p2002-2011.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Low-income families' selection of child care for their young children

Author

Listed:
  • Tang, Sandra
  • Coley, Rebekah Levine
  • Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth

Abstract

Conceptual models suggest that child, mother, family, and community factors are likely to affect families' choice of child care settings for their young children, yet little research has comprehensively tested such models among low-income families. This research assessed the type of early care experienced by low-income urban preschoolers (N=802) in the Three-City Study. Results revealed that in comparison to White mothers, Latina mothers were less likely to use Head Start or center-based care. In comparison to mothers who did not work, mothers who worked full-time, part-time, or who had regular work schedules had a higher likelihood of relying on non-maternal early care. Type of care used also varied by geographic location, suggesting that care availability and accessibility have primary roles in low-income families' care options. Future research and policy suggestions are discussed in light of these results.

Suggested Citation

  • Tang, Sandra & Coley, Rebekah Levine & Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth, 2012. "Low-income families' selection of child care for their young children," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2002-2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:34:y:2012:i:10:p:2002-2011
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.06.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740912002563
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.06.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arleen Leibowitz & Linda Waite & Christina Witsberger, 1988. "Child care for preschoolers: Differences by child’s age," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(2), pages 205-220, May.
    2. Sandra L. Hofferth & Douglas A. Wissoker, 1992. "Price, Quality, and Income in Child Care Choice," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(1), pages 70-111.
    3. Rachel Gordon & P. Chase-Lansdale, 2001. "Availability of child care in the United States: A description and analysis of data sources," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(2), pages 299-316, May.
    4. Lowe, Edward D. & Weisner, Thomas S., 2004. "`You have to push it--who's gonna raise your kids?': situating child care and child care subsidy use in the daily routines of lower income families," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 143-171, February.
    5. Magnuson, Katherine A. & Ruhm, Christopher & Waldfogel, Jane, 2007. "Does prekindergarten improve school preparation and performance?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 33-51, February.
    6. William T. Gormley, Jr. & Ted Gayer, 2005. "Promoting School Readiness in Oklahoma: An Evaluation of Tulsa's Pre-K Program," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(3).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johnson, Anna D. & Padilla, Christina M. & Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth, 2017. "Predictors of public early care and education use among children of low-income immigrants," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 24-36.
    2. Zhang, Jianhong & Nijhof, André & Zaman, Syeda Sazia & Dutta, Mitul & Yesmin, Sakila, 2020. "What drives parents to consider center-based child care for their children? The case of Bangladesh," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    3. Ünver, Özgün & Bircan, Tuba & Nicaise, Ides, 2021. "A multilevel approach to ECEC policies and intensity of formal childcare participation of young children in Europe," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    4. Elizabeth E. Davis & Caroline Carlin & Caroline Krafft & Nicole D. Forry, 2018. "Do Child Care Subsidies Increase Employment Among Low-Income Parents?," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(4), pages 662-682, December.
    5. Carlin, Caroline & Davis, Elizabeth E. & Krafft, Caroline & Tout, Kathryn, 2019. "Parental preferences and patterns of child care use among low-income families: A Bayesian analysis," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 172-185.
    6. Ansari, Arya & Winsler, Adam, 2013. "Stability and sequence of center-based and family childcare: Links with low-income children's school readiness," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 358-366.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Markowitz, Anna J. & Ryan, Rebecca M. & Johnson, Anna D., 2014. "Child care subsidies and child care choices: The moderating role of household structure," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 230-240.
    2. Johnson, Anna D. & Padilla, Christina M. & Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth, 2017. "Predictors of public early care and education use among children of low-income immigrants," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 24-36.
    3. Magnuson, Katherine & Shager, Hilary, 2010. "Early education: Progress and promise for children from low-income families," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1186-1198, September.
    4. Carlin, Caroline & Davis, Elizabeth E. & Krafft, Caroline & Tout, Kathryn, 2019. "Parental preferences and patterns of child care use among low-income families: A Bayesian analysis," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 172-185.
    5. Hirshberg, Diane & Huang, Danny Shih-Cheng & Fuller, Bruce, 2005. "Which low-income parents select child-care?: Family demand and neighborhood organizations," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(10), pages 1119-1148, October.
    6. Herbst, Chris M. & Tekin, Erdal, 2010. "Child care subsidies and child development," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 618-638, August.
    7. Christina Felfe & Natalia Nollenberger & Núria Rodríguez-Planas, 2015. "Can’t buy mommy’s love? Universal childcare and children’s long-term cognitive development," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(2), pages 393-422, April.
    8. Elizabeth U. Cascio, 2023. "Does Universal Preschool Hit the Target?: Program Access and Preschool Impacts," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 1-42.
    9. Dimiski, Anastasia, 2023. "How does pre-school attendance affect school performance? An application of Gini-BMA methodology on PISA 2018 dataset," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    10. van Huizen, Thomas & Plantenga, Janneke, 2018. "Do children benefit from universal early childhood education and care? A meta-analysis of evidence from natural experiments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 206-222.
    11. Fitzpatrick Maria D, 2008. "Starting School at Four: The Effect of Universal Pre-Kindergarten on Children's Academic Achievement," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-40, November.
    12. Daniel Kuehnle & Michael Oberfichtner, 2020. "Does Starting Universal Childcare Earlier Influence Children’s Skill Development?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(1), pages 61-98, February.
    13. Haeck, Catherine & Lefebvre, Pierre & Merrigan, Philip, 2015. "Canadian evidence on ten years of universal preschool policies: The good and the bad," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 137-157.
    14. Anastasia Dimiski, 2020. "Factors that affect Students’ performance in Science: An application using Gini-BMA methodology in PISA 2015 dataset," Working Papers 2004, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    15. Johnson, Anna D. & Martin, Anne & Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, 2011. "Who uses child care subsidies? Comparing recipients to eligible non-recipients on family background characteristics and child care preferences," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1072-1083, July.
    16. Ribar, David C, 1995. "A Structural Model of Child Care and the Labor Supply of Married Women," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(3), pages 558-597, July.
    17. Chris M. Herbst & Erdal Tekin, 2010. "The Impact of Child Care Subsidies on Child Well-Being: Evidence from Geographic Variation in the Distance to Social Service Agencies," NBER Working Papers 16250, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Jens Ludwig & Deborah A. Phillips, 2007. "The Benefits and Costs of Head Start," NBER Working Papers 12973, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan & Matthieu Verstraete, 2008. "Childcare Policy and Cognitive Outcomes of Children: Results from a Large Scale Quasi-Experiment on Universal Childcare in Canada," Cahiers de recherche 0823, CIRPEE.
    20. Hong, Kai & Dragan, Kacie & Glied, Sherry, 2019. "Seeing and hearing: The impacts of New York City’s universal pre-kindergarten program on the health of low-income children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 93-107.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:34:y:2012:i:10:p:2002-2011. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.