Working Families and Growing Kids Caring for Children and Adolescents (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-10
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This dramatic transformation of work and family life in the United States has brought many benefits to society, but a significant challenge remains: a large percentage of the 35 million children and adolescents ages birth to age 14 with working mothers are in a child care arrangement with someone other than their parents for an average of 22 to 40 hours a week-amounting to nearly 1 billion hours these children spend in out-of-home care each week. Substantial progress has been made in the past 15 years in determining 1
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The benefits of early childhood educational interventions and of afterschool programs for early adolescents, particularly for children and young people from low-income families, have helped persuade municipal governments, state legislatures, and the federal government to invest more in these programs. However, society has not taken full advantage of the opportunities child care provides.
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From 1970 to 2000, overall maternal labor force participation rates rose from 38 to 68 percent and paternal labor force participation remained high and stable. The result of this labor force change is that a larger fraction of children live in families in which all available parents are in the labor force -- either they live with a single parent who is em ployed or they live with two parents, both of whom work at least some hours for pay each week.
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Publicly funded early care and education programs which are intended to provide developmentally beneficial nonparental care for young children, such as Head Start and Early Head Start, reach only about 40 percent of those who are eligible. Although efforts are being made at better integration, at present programs to provide care for children of working parents are often not integrated with programs to provide developmentally beneficial care.
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Family income influences the adequacy of food, clothing, and housing, safety from injury and from dangerous elements in the physical environment, availability of health care services, and access to a variety of toys, books, and stimulating outings and opportunities. A family's income also appears to affect material well-being, which in turn affects children and adolescents.
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The results of the Early Head Start Evaluation, as well as the National Head Start Impact Study currently under way, will provide guidance for program improvement, as the program ex pands to serve more children from birth to age 5 for more hours and ensures that the program meets the full-day, full-year needs of work ing families. · Policy Option: Expand prekindergarten and other early education programs delivered in community-based child care programs.
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· Policy Option: Expand child care subsidies through quality-related vouchers. Provide vouchers with a reimbursement rate that increases with the developmental quality of child care purchased from accredited child care centers or family day care homes for children from birth to age 12.
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Full-day, full-year Head Start: approximately $9,811 per child. Current spending $6.67 billion Cost estimate for this policy option The costs in addition to the current budget to expand or enhance services would vary depending upon who is served and by what level of services: · Full-day, full-year services provided to all eligible children ages birth to 5 years not currently served: $25.2 billion.
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Per child cost estimate The estimated cost of a voucher for full-day year round high-quality child care for a child aged 0-5 in a family with income below the poverty line is $6,000, with lower estimates for older children, lower-quality care, and children in higher-income fam ilies. Current spending Approximately $21 billion Cost estimate for this policy option It is estimated that the program would cost an additional $54 billion.
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In the committee's view, the highest research priority should therefore be the collection of national data on process quality through the institution of a new nationally representative survey of child care arrangements with a focus on the quality of care. CONCLUSION This report identifies important opportunities that have the potential to improve the quality of child and adolescent development in this country through new or expanded public policies.
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