Who Cares for America's Children? (1990) / Chapter Skim
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I INTRODUCTION1 Child Care in a Changing Society
I INTRODUCTION1 Child Care in a Changing Society
Pages 1-15
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I Intro cluction .
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Since the late 1980s, a major focus of this concern has been on the care and rearing of American children. There is growing recognition that if parents are to manage productive roles in the labor force and at the same time fulfill their roles within the family, a substantial social response is required.
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Debate over the appropriate role of government, employers, and parents themselves has intensified in recent years and has led to numerous proposals from leaders of both political parties and a broad array of special interest groups to address the increasing need for child care support and services. Although they differ greatly in their specifics, these proposals share the fundamental recognition that child care is costly, whether it is provided by parents, other family members, or unrelated caregivers and whether it is privately or publicly financed.
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Another powerful aspect of the debate over child care policy is the growing recognition that children are a valuable national resource. Declining fertility and a growing demand for skilled labor in the United States have drawn increasing attention to children.
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Public policy and programs, they suggest, should be neutral about whether or not mothers enter or remain in the paid labor force, but they should be aimed at optimizing the health and development of children whose mothers do work by ensuring accessibility to quality child care services. The costs of providing appropriate care for young children, they contend, are far less than the costs of ameliorating the predictable long-term negative consequences for children who are not well cared for.
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Widespread disagreement about the nature of the child care problem has created confusion and conflict over what to do about it. Political leaders, program planners, early childhood professionals, as well as parents themselves appear divided over what the primary goals should be: to provide safe and developmentally appropriate care for all children whose parents work outside the home; to enhance the employability and career opportunities of women, including women who are the mothers of young children; to provide incentives for mothers on welfare to seek education and job training and accept positions in the work force that will help them achieve economic self-sufficiency and reduce welfare dependency; or to provide comprehensive early childhood services for disadvantaged children to ameliorate the negative consequences of deprivation and to enhance their readiness for entry into regular elementary education programs.
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It includes an array of professional providers and program types, such as child care centers, family day care and group homes, public and private nursery schools, prekindergartens and kindergartens, Head Start programs, and before and after school programs, as well as informal arrangements such as relative care, in-home babysitting, and nanny care. 1b some extent, this diversity reflects both the varied preferences and the limited options of parents in different social, economic, and cultural circumstances.
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As Woolsey noted (1977:128~: All specify objectives clearly what form of care, for which children, financed through which institutional structures, employing what sort of staff, would undermine team spirit and is thus avoided." Moreover, despite the magnitude of the child care issue, there is a lack of detailed information about the costs, benefits, and feasibility of alternative policies and programs. Understanding of trends in mothers' labor force participation, the social and economic structure of families, and the developmental effects of supplemental care has advanced significantly in recent years, but knowledge of the effects and effectiveness of formal and informal, public- and private-sector responses to the child care needs of working families has not kept pace.
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Even in those countries that have established child care systems separate from the educational system, early childhood programs stress age and developmentally appropriate programming for all children regardless of whether their mothers are in the paid labor force or not (Kamerman, 1988; Moss, 1988~. Among most industrialized nations, there is also growing recognition of the need to expand the supply of child care services for children under age 3.
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It is important to note that several countries have adopted these types of parental leave and child care initiatives as a complement to broader family policies that provide child or family cash allowances and in-kind benefits or both. These benefits are designed to supplement the income of low-income families with very young children so that married women with employed husbands can elect not to enter the labor force without suffering economic hardship.
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Department of Health and Human Services, the Foundation on Child Development, and the Ford Foundation. Over a 2-year period, the panel, through a set of working groups, has sought to gather, integrate, and critically assess data concerning the implications of child care services for child development; regulations, standards, and enforcement; the child care market; and the child care delivery system as a basis for recommending future directions for policy and program development.
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However, in light of current economic realities in the United States, formulating child care policies will inevitably involve tradeoffs. Improving the quality of out-ofhome child care services will raise the costs of care.
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These chapters are grouped in four sections. The second chapter of this introductory section summarizes trends in work, family structure and income, and child care and their implications for the supply and demand for alternative child care programs and arrangements.
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1988 Child Care Policies and Programs: An International Overview. Paper prepared for the Panel on Child Care Policy, Workshop on International Perspectives on Child Care, August 9, 1988.
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