Facts In Action

According to a new report from The Urban Institute, in 1999, nearly 73% of children under the age of five with employed parents were in a non-parental care arrangement. Of these approximately 8.7 million children, 28% were in center-based care, 27% were in relative care, 14% were in family child care, and 4% were cared for by babysitters or nannies (the remaining 27% were in parental care). In addition, the report also looks at the differences in child care choices made by families based on family income and family structure:

• Preschool children with single parents - regardless of income level - were more likely to be in center-based care than children from two-parent families.
  
  
• Two-parent families were more likely to use parental care than single-parent families, but low-income families were more likely than higher-income families to rely on parental care.
  
  
• There was no significant difference in the use of family child care or relative care based on family structure or family income.

This report provides an update of the National Survey of America's Families data, which collects information on the primary child care arrangements used by families with children under the age of 13. According to the reports authors, information on how families were addressing their child care needs in the late 1990s provides a picture of how the strong economy and shifts in social welfare policies played out in terms of the types of arrangements families were accessing at that time.

Source:
Primary Child Care Arrangements of Employed Parents: Findings from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families, F.L. Sonenstein, G.J. Gates, S. Schmidt, N. Bolshun, Urban Institute, Occassional Paper Number 59, May 2002.

For more information:
contact the Urban Institute, 2100 M Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037, by phone at (202) 833-7200, by email at paffairs@ui.urban.org, or online at www.urban.org.

Facts in Action, June 2002