Who Cares for America's Children? (1990) / Chapter Skim
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2 Trends in Work, Family, and Child Care
2 Trends in Work, Family, and Child Care
Pages 16-42
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From page 16... ...
These dramatic trends have been the subject of popular media attention and scholarly inquiry, and they have significant implications for child care issues. Recent shifts in labor force participation particularly among women with children in family structure, in family income, and in the settings in which children are cared for and reared are clearly related, but there is little definitive evidence of causal links (Kamerman and Hayes, 1982~.
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From page 17... ...
society that have created the current context for child care policy. IABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION The past decade and a half have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the labor force participation of mothers with young children.
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From page 18... ...
, and the numbers are expected to rise in the l990s (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1988~. The most dramatic change in labor force participation has been among mothers in two-parent families: between 1970 and 1987 this proportion jumped from 39 percent to 61 percent.
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From page 19... ...
By contrast, less than one-half of mothers with four children, regardless of marital status, and only one-quarter of single mothers with five or more children were working outside their homes (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1988~. The causal relationship between family size and mothers' labor force participation is complex and difficult to sort out.
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From page 20... ...
Among single-parent families, white mothers are far more likely than black or Hispanic mothers to be in the labor force and to :be employed. For women who are single parents who are in the labor force, unemployment is particularly high among black women with preschool-age children: at 26.8 percent in 1988, their jobless rate was over twice as high as that of white mothers with preschoolers and more than three times that of Hispanic mothers with very young children (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1988~.
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From page 21... ...
As indicated in Figure 2-5, it appears that marital status rather than the age of the child determines whether a mother who is employed works full or part time. Although women's labor force participation in the United States has increased in almost every decade since 1890, the dramatic increase in the number of mothers working outside the home during the past decade represents a fundamental change in the day-to-day life of many American women.
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From page 22... ...
While most white and Hispanic children live with two parents, more than one-half of all black children do not. Despite differences in the prevalence of children living with only one parent, rates of growth in the formation of mother-only families have been similar for whites, blacks, and Hispanics.
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From page 23... ...
The combined result of these trends is that more than one-half of all white chil dren and three-quarters of all black children born in the 1970s and 1980s are expected to live for some portion of their formative years with only one of their parents (Bureau of the Census, 1979; Cherlin, 1981; Hofferth, 1985~. Rising rates of single parenthood, like rising rates of mothers' labor force participation, are part and parcel of a series of complex social and economic trends in the United States during the past generation.
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From page 24... ...
median family income and often below the poverty level. The period since 1970 has been characterized by erratic changes in patterns of family income (Levy, 1987~: real median income increased in the early 1970s, declined in the recessionary period from 1973 to 1975, and then rose in alternate years during the second half of the decade.
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From page 25... ...
. Children whose mothers were in the labor force were more economicaDy secure in 1987 than chi dren of nonwor ing mothers, regardless of race or fami y structure.
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From page 26... ...
However, they were not on average as well off as children in two-parent families, regardless of the mother's labor force participation. In motheronly families in which the mother worked, the median family income in 1986 was less than one-half that of all married-couple families with children.
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From page 27... ...
Among black or Hispanic children in mother-only families, the poverty rates are even higher: more than 68 percent of black children and 70 percent of Hispanic children, compared with 46 percent of white children, were poor in 1987 (Bureau of the Census, 198&; see also Figure 2-9~. This difference is largely attributable to the higher rates of labor force participation among white mothers who are the heads of their households.
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From page 28... ...
For the most part, mother-headed families are able to survive on their own economically only if the mother has regular employment (Masnick and Bane, 1980~. THE CARE OF CHILDREN As more mothers have decided to enter or remain in the labor force since 1970, families have increasingly come to rely on adults Qutside the immediate family to care for their children.
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From page 29... ...
Current Population Reports, Series P-70, No.
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From page 30... ...
Even though children of unmarried mothers are less frequently cared for by their fathers, the proportion who are cared for in their own home is not substantially different than for children of married mothers. Grandparents appear to play a larger role in the care of preschool age children of unmarried mothers than of married mothers, about 16 percent compared with 3 percent (Bureau of the Census, 1987c)
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From page 31... ...
Black children under age 5 are more likely than white or Hispanic children to be in organized child care facilities and significantly more likely to be in child care centers than in nursery or preschool programs. Women who are single parents are more likely to choose child care centers rather than nursery or preschool programs, if
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From page 33... ...
In addition, the lower annual earnings of women in service positions may affect their ability to pay for organized child care services (Bureau of the Census, 1987c)
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From page 34... ...
cost of center care but the unavailability of a spouse with whom to share child care responsibilities. Furthermore, the option for low-income parents to rely on other relatives has also diminished as grandmothers, aunts, and extended family members have increased their own labor force participation in recent years (Kisker et al., 1988; Sonenstein and Wolf, 1988~.
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From page 35... ...
Among mothers who have some discretion about when and how much they work outside the home, the availability and affordability of "adequate child care" also affect decisions to seek employment. A mother's labor force participation necessarily reduces her time and energy for home production activities, including child care, transportation, housework, and shopping.
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From page 36... ...
In 1982, 26 percent of mothers of preschool children who were not in the labor force reported that they would be looking for work if they could find satisfactory child care, and 16 percent of employed mothers reported that they were constrained in their work hours by the availability of satisfactory child care. Substantially more unmarried mothers (45 percent)
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From page 37... ...
FUTURE TRENDS The dramatic demographic and economic trends of the 1970s and the 1980s seem likely to continue into the 1990s. Although specific patterns and rates of change in mothers' labor force participation, children growing up in single-parent families, and children who will require care outside their own homes are dependent on a variety of factors, there is general
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From page 38... ...
Children and Their Families: Current Conditions and Recent Trends (1989) , based on data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, March 1988.
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From page 39... ...
The growing proportion of children living with only one parent, usually their mothers, coupled with the rising labor force participation of extended family members who were once available to provide child care, suggests that the demand for out-of-home child care services will continue to increase well into the 1990s. REFERENCES Atkinson, A.M.
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From page 40... ...
1978 Children of Working Mothers, March 1977. Special Labor Force Report 217, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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From page 41... ...
1980 Tends in the labor force participation of women.
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From page 42... ...
Stolzenberg 1976 Intended childbearing and labor force participation among young women: Insights from nonrecursive models. American Sociological Review 41:235-252.
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