Title: Provision and use of preschool childcare in Britain
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Families benefit from childcare. The availability of affordable childcare is a major influence on women's ability to take up paid work. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, 'Helping families to combine work and care is an essential step in achieving equality by enabling better access to the labour market for women'. Good quality childcare also improves children's long-term intellectual and social development. A feature of good quality childcare is the level of qualification of the childcare staff. In 2011 the government published a major strategic document, Supporting Families in the Foundation Years, which renewed the government's commitment to the fundamental importance of the early years and contained recognition of the value of good qualifications for this workforce. This report focused on formal childcare provision, including provision by nurseries, playgroups or childminders. However, the majority of childcare is provided not in formal settings, but is provided informally by friends and relatives, especially by grandparents. Until recently, very little was known about this informal care, but two major reports published in 2011, from the Daycare Trust and Grandparents Plus, drew attention to the major role played by grandparents. With greater longevity, these grandparents may be looking after young children at the same time as caring for their own elderly parents. They form a 'pivot generation', with caring responsibilities for the young and the old. Little research has so far been conducted which brings together the needs of parents, of the formal childcare workforce and of informal carers. This study will address this gap by combining information about the users (parents) and the providers of childcare, both formal and informal. It will do this through a secondary analysis of a number of large-scale, national quantitative datasets. The aim of this research is to inform understandings of the future shape of childcare provision and usage in Britain. We will investigate the coverage and characteristics of childcare usage and provision and the childcare workforce (formal and informal) through a secondary analysis of large-scale national quantitative data, including the Labour Force Survey, the Family Resources Survey, Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey, and Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents. To examine the use of childcare, this research will identify those parents using childcare, both formal and informal, for their preschool children. It will examine what combinations of childcare parents are using. We shall relate the use of childcare to the demographic characteristics of the parents: these would include social class measures and income, and - perhaps most importantly - the employment status of the mother. We will compare these demographic characteristics with families that have preschool children, but are not making use of childcare. To examine formal childcare provision, we will use the Standard Occupational Classification to identify people who are currently employed in the childcare workforce. We will examine their demographic characteristics, including gender, age, ethnicity and whether they have children of their own. Some of the datasets include questions about providing childcare informally, rather than as a job. These data will be used to identify those who are providing informal childcare. We will describe their demographic characteristics, and identify whether they are also providing care to anyone else. The National Day Nursery Association (representing providers) and the Daycare Trust (representing parents) have agreed to collaborate. They will contribute their own perspectives to the design of the research, and will also help develop dissemination materials that will ensure the research findings are relevant for members of their organisations and to wider non-academic audiences.


Research activity codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE