NLS

Discussion

Papers

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EVALUATION OF THE 1989 CHILD CARE SUPPLEMENT

IN THE NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SUHVEY OF YOUTH

Frank L. Mott and Paula Baker

Center for Human Resource Research

The Ohio State University

October 1989

This paper was prepared under a contract vith the U.S. Department of Labor,

Bureau of Labor Statistics, with funds provided by intergovernmental transfers

from the Social Services Policy Division, Assistant Secreta~ for Planning and

Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National

Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Interpretations and

viewpoints contained in this paper do not necessarily represent the official

positions or policies of the various agencies. The authors thank Joyce Abma

for her outst~ding research assistance.
This report s-rizes the results of a special =periment in the

collection (from 347 mothers) of detailed current ad retrespective ~ild care

informt ion carried out in conjwet ion vith the 1989 (llth romd) wave of the

Natioml Longitudinal Survey of Youth. It addresses a nmber of child care

data quality ad evaluation issues ad provides some recomendat ions for

subsequent data collection. ‘Interested readers should have access to the 1989

Child Wre Supplement in order to mimally be able to interpret the results

of this report.
EVALUATION OF THE 1989 CHILD C~E SUPPLEME~

IN THE NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SUHVEY OF YOUTH

Introduction

The 1989 (llth wave) round of the National Longitudinal Survey of Work

Experience of Youth (NLSY) included a special child care supplement designed

to obtain maternal reports of current and usual childcare, and retrospective

care information about arrangements used since the last interview. The

supplement was completed by 347 mothers in the smple who were all interviewed

early in the survey round, primarily during the months of June and July. This

special data collection was funded by the Department of Health and Human

Services in order to evaluate several data quality issues.

(1) Child care information in the NLSY (and in several other surveys)

is typically collected for the primary and seconda~ arrangement used by the

mother for her children. In this “pretest”, information was gathered for

every child care arrangement lasting at least an hour during the survey week.

The intention here is to gauge the extent to which informationabout only the

primary and secondary care arrangement accurately reflects the totality of the

household child care arrangement for that time period.

(2) The 1989 special child care supplement included a retrospective

child =re section, which asked about every child care arrangement used by the

mother since the date of the last interview that lasted at least 10 hours in

any one week. The intent here was to evaluate, in a preliminary way, the

extent to which women are able to retrospectively reconstruct information

about prior child care arrangements.

(3) The special child care supplement also contained a variety of

questions on other related child care topics of a behavioral and attitudinal

nature. The principal reason for including most of these questions wss

essentially to test their face validity and general utility for helping

explain child care behavior; do they include a full range of apparently

rational responses and are respondents, for the most part, able to provide an

answer? In addition, are the preceded response possibilityies, which are

=sential from a cost perspective in my large scale survey, appropriate?
Sample and Data Collection

As indicated above, the:child care supplement was completed by 347

women who were interviewed during the first month of the 1989 survey round.

These mothers represented a full cross-section of the mothers in the survey.

One major advantage of the approach was that over 100 interviewers were

involved in this special data collection, with no interviewer collecting

information from more than four respondents. Thus, the results are

generalizable across a full range of interviewing situations. A potential

disadvantage is that the limited interviews per interviewer may have caused

some interviewers to be less polished in their administration of the

supplement than they would have been had they each conducted a larger number

of child care interviews. The reader is cautioned against using the specific

statistics in this study to generalize to a full universe of mothers and

children. These 347 cases constitute an unweighed sample of black, Hispanic

and white mothers aged 24 to 32 who may not fully represent even this

particular group--since they reflect interviews with only the first 347 of

well over 3,000 mothers to be interviewed in the 1989 survey round.

Notwithstanding this caveat, the results probably reflect-reasonably well the

kinds of results, in terms of quality, which one could anticipate if the full

cohort of mothers had been interviewed.

Child Care Arrangements During the Survey Week

Part I of the child care schedule details all of the survey week child

care arrangements reported by the 347 mothers in this survey. Overall, about

85 percent of the mothers indicated that the week preceding the interview was

II~YPical,,in terms Of the child care they usuallY receive. About three

quarters of the mothers indicated that someone helped them care for their

children in the week prior to the inteniew. This level of actual current

child care use is higher than is typically reported in most other studies of

mothers vith young children; indeed, the 75 percent reported using care is

substantially above the rates of current care reported in prior N.L.S.Y.

survey rounds. The fact that the data were collected during the summer months

while many children are home from school does not account for this high use

rate as most women (85 percent) reported last week as being a typical week.

2
Indeed, only a total of 12 mothers indicated that they had to alter their

usual arrangement because their children were home from school. More likely,

as will be detailed below, the high rate of child care use probably ref”lects

our probing for all arrangements lasting an hour or more, regardless of the

respondent’s usual activity.

The questions on current child care arrangements were principally

designed to assess whether information about a woman’s primary and secondary

arrangement adequately describes all of the arrangements currently used. For

86 percent of women, two or fewer arrangements represent all the arrangements

they are currently using; no woman reported more than five survey week

arrangements. Table 1, which synthesizes several dimensions of this survey

week profile, shows that 88 percent of all survey week arrangements were

either a primary or secondary arrangement, and that they accounted for shout

91 percent of all child care hours reported during the week. Thus, data

collection limited to reports on two arrangements yields approximately 90

percent of the child care time that mothers typically utilize (or at least

report about!). It is worth noting, however, that asking for information on

three arrangements would increase the report of all arrangements and of all

child care hours to about 97 percent. It is suggested that since the addition

of third arrangements to data collection incorporates almost all the remaining

arrangements, the option of including three rather than two arrangements in

the NLSY child care data collection should be considered.

In general, the quality of the reporting with respect to current

arrangements appears reasonable. Because this experiment occurred in the

summer, and because the sample is essentially an unweighed group of mothers

with an over-representation of minority and disadvantaged females, it is

difficult to compare the patterning of arrangements in this study with other

data. Nonetheless, it does appear that our intensive attempt to pick up all

kinds of arrangements, however casual they may be, resulted in a greater

tendency for mothers to report non-formal, sometimes non-paid arrangements.

This probably reflects the emphasis in the introductory lead in statements

encouraging the respondents to tell us about (1) any and all arrangements, (2)

all arrangements lasting at lesst one hour, and (3) arrangements used for nonemployment as well as employment activities. The distribution of types of

arrangements includes larger proportions of care by relatives and smaller

proportions of formal day care arrangements than typically found in other

3
surveys--including earlier NLSY reports. In addition, relatively large

proportions of mothers reported their spouse or partner as the caregiver.

Also, the proportion of caregivers who are relatives tended to be even higher

for secondaw and tertiary arrangements and, correspondingly, very few of

these arrangements were of a formal nature; and vew few of these latter

arrangements were in other than a private home.

Paralleling this apparent heavy representation of informal

arrangements, only a minority of women reported that they paid for their

arrangements. About 40 percent reported that they paid for their first

arrangement and about 30 percent for second arrangements. This is well below

what is typically found in the NLSY or other surveys. In addition, the

distribution of hours used for the primary arrangement is substantially

different from what we have found in prior NLSY survey rounds.

In summary, our emphasis on encouraging women to report on any and all

child care arrangements, formal or informal, lasting for as short a time as

one hour a week, regardless of aployment status, appears to have been

relatively successful. In comparison with other available data, the mothers

in our sample (1) were much more likely to have reported using child care, (2)

were more likely to report non-formal arrangements, particularityrelatives,

(3) typically made child care arrangements for fewer hours per arrangement and

(4) more often than not did not pay for the arrangement. Part of this pattern

may reflect the summer season. More importantly, all of the above strongly

suggest that question wordings which encourage respondents to report marginsl

arrangements appear to do so.

For arrangements that lasted ten hours a week or more, a variety of

additional arrangement characteristics were collected (see Part 1, questions

51 through 5N). This included information about the education and specialized

child care training the caregivers may have received, the number of children

cared for in the arrangement, the number of adult supervisors per group, and

the date (month-year) the arrangement started.1From the perspective of this

1. It is useful to note that many interviewers ignored the skip instruction

regarding 10 hours and asked the questions for all arrangements, regardless of

the actual number of hours the arrangement was utilized. For example, 232

interviews reported on the number of years of education of the child care

giver, even though only 170 primary arrangements were reported as lasting ten

hours or more.

4
.

particular study, the principal reason for including these questions was to

gain insights into whether or not mothers, particularly those with multiple

arrangements, are able to provide answers to the questions. (Whether or not

the answers are indeed accurate would require independent corroboration, which

to some extent is beyond the scope of our evaluation.) For the most part, the

respondents were able to provide information about these child care

characteristics. This was particularly true for the information about class

2

size and number of child care personnel. Mothers were somewhat less able to

provide information on individual caregiver characteristics. Of the 234 vOmen

who reported a primary child care arrangement, 23 (10 percent) indicated that

they did not how how much education the caregiver had. About 5 percent were

unable to specify whether or not the caregiver had specialearly childhood

training. The majority of the non-responses were reported for more formal

arrangements--where the child was in a day or group care arrangement O= ~a~

being watched by a non-relative age 15 or over. The non-completion/donrt bow

rates on these iternswere significantly lower for secondary and tertiary

arrangements, undoubtedly reflecting the fact that these arrangements were

more likely to involve family members--for whom this information would be

hewn.

In contrast, virtually all the mothers provided information about

class size and number of supervisors in the arrangement. About 85 percent of

the children’s primary arrangements was in groups of 7 or less and three

quarters of the arrangements had only one caregiver. The relatively mOdest

size of most arrangements makes the identification of the numbers of children

and caregivers relatively easy and also probably quite accurate.

Not surprisingly, the two data items that required the greatest amount

of recall and/or subjective evaluation appear to be of the poorest quality.

While the start date for many, particularly major, arrangements may in most

instances be easily recalled, there are situations where precision in

recollection may be quite difficult. For example, if a particular arrangement

is used intermittently over a lengthy time period, a respondent may be

uncertain regarding which start date (or indeed, which termination date) to

2. It is worth noting that a number of parents mentioned that there“was

variable group size over the course of a day. Our questions did not allow for

this option.

5
provide. A case in point would be a particular relative (e.g., grandmother)

who is “available” for child care on a more or less continuing basis, but who

is only used intermittently as needed. Unless a precise specification is used

(e.g., !!Whenwas the very last time YOU used for child care?”)

it is virtually impossible to obtain consistent (across respondents) usable

information on arrangements of these types. In addition, our minimum cutoff

on hours for obtaining dates for the beginning of current arrangements is ten

hours. Given this rather modest hours threshold, plus the possibility that a

respondent may be trying to reconstruct start dates for multiple arrangements,

it is not surprising that recollection can in some instances be uncertain.

Table 2 synthesizes the patterning of reported start dates for the 174

current primary arrangements lasting 10 or more hours a week. A usable start

date could not be obtained for only three of these arrangements. The average

(median) arrangement as of June 1989 was about nine months, meaning that about

half the arrangements started after September 1988. An examination of the

annual patterning of the beginning dates for these current arrangements

indicates, not surprisingly, that the bulk of the current arrangements are of

recent vintage. Tbe reported monthly pattern is analytically somewhat more

interesting. If one excludes arrangements that began in 1989, it is readily

apparent that the mOst cOmmOn mOnths for beginning child care arrangements

coincide with late summer-early fall, when children typically begin regular

scbooi programs. Indeed, for tha pre–1989 period, almost half of all ongoing

reported arrangements began either in August or September (the reasonableness

of this patterning will be clarified further when the patterning of

retrospective’arrangements is considered). However, when one examines the

pattern for those arrangements which began in 1989, it is apparent that there

is a major tendency to report on very recent arrangements -–those that began

during the survey montbs. This undoubtedly reflects the reality that at any

given point in time some substantial proportion of mothers are changing their

child care arrangements and that this tendency may be particularly pronounced

at the beginning of the sumer, when school has just ended. Clearly,

seasonality and duration of current arrangements can be significantly affected

by the time of year the survey data are collected. This will be highlighted

further in the section on retrospective data collection.

As a final note on the characteristics of current child care givers,

it is useful to note that the only data item with a substantial number of

6
responses falling in the ,,othert,category is the question inquiring intO the

reason the respondent started using a particular child care arrangement. Of

the 233 women who responded to this item, 77 or 33 percent provided an answer

which did not fall”into any of the available code categories. In addition,

most.of the coded responses either have only limited analytical utility or

else could have been more appropriately diagnosed through the collection of

parallel behavioral information; for example, 44 respondents gave as a reason

,,lo~tor stopped their previous caregiver,,,a re~ponse of limited analytical

value. Eighty three gave as a reason the fact that they started work or

training. Finally, it is important to note that the reason they started a

current arrangement may have little to do with why they are currently using

that arrangement. It is not clear how the responses to this question can be

easily used in any analyses, unless they are more clearly specified for

possible connection with other mOther activities.

Information on Current Care Arrangements Where

More Than One Child is Reported

Part 2 of the child care supplement examined the extent to which

within-household information about child care hours and payments were

separable in households where more than one child utilized a particular

caregiver. Our particular interest was in measuring the extent to which hours

or costs are indeed separable between children and, additionally, the extent

to which mothers indicate that they are unable to provide separate

information, not because costs/hours were not separable, but because they were

unable to quantify differences. Information was reported for 164 households

which included two or more children. The data was collected for the two

youngest children in the household.

On the positive side, it appears that respondents are frequently able

to separate out child care costs which can be attributed to a particular child

even if a particular provider is caring for more than one child in the

household, regardless of whether both children are being watched the same or a

different numbers of hours. On the domside, it is apparent that the

interviewers had considerable difficulty in following the appropriate skip

instructions for this section.

7
In only a very small number of cases were children not reported as

being watched.all hours by a particular”caregiver if that caregiver was

watching them at all; and this was true even with respect to.secondary or

tertiary arrangements. For example, 149 youngest children were reported as

being watched by the primary caregiver and in 146 cases, the caregiver watched

the child all the hours she worked. For the second youngest child, the same

pattern held for 129.and 121 cases respectively.

The interviewers had some difficulty in following the skip pattern

instructions regarding the reporting on hours and costs; in a large number of

cases they reported information even where it wasn’t required. This is a

minor problem, however. A bigger problem relates to the fact that many

interviewers/mothers did not provide information on whether costs were

separate or not (Column D in Child Care Chart BB). This probably reflects a

flaw in the child care reporting form as many interviewers/mothers were

continuing to follow the hours instructions in Column C--and were only

reporting cost information if they had already reported that the hours

information was separable; however, it is frequently possible to provide

separate cost information even if both children were watched the same number

of hours by the same person. However, for a substantial number of children,

costs could be separated by child and, in these instances, most of tbe time

separate CO.Sts were provided. Across all youngest child arrangements, there

are 66.(of 231) instances where a mother indicated that separate costs could

be identified, and in 59 of these cases, actual costs were provided.

Thus, in summary, the results suggest that mothers can frequently

provide separate hours and/or cost information for each child. However, some

of the skip patterns for questions of this type can be quite complex,

considerable interviewer training is needed and clear questionnaire

instructions provided. In this regard, it is useful to recall that while only

experienced NLSY interviewers were selected for this pretest, they had only

limited experience with this child care supplement. Their training included a

brief self-study manual. Their actual field experience was limited to

completing between one and four child care supplements. Thus, there was only

limited opportunity to become thoroughly familiar with the questions and the

skip patterns.

8
Part 3: Information on Attitudes and Alternate Arrangements

.

This relatively heterogeneous (in terms of questions asked) section

probes into a variety of issues relating to hypothetical child care interests

and ‘availabilityas well as the flexibility of current and recent arrangements

for meeting unusual or emergency situations.

About four out of five mothers indicated that they would remain with

their current child care arrangementt even if Q arrarigements were available

free .of charge. Either this response pattern implies an extraordinarily high

level of satisfaction or else individuals may not be sensitive to the full

range of possibilities which are available. The question as worded has

several limitations. First, a working woman’s first preference might be to

remain at home vith her children (or have her spouse stay home) but it is not

clear that this is an intended option given the wording of the question (even

though 14 women did indicate this as a preference to their current

arrangement). A woman’s staying home implies a loss of wages, and it is not

clear that ,,fre=,lchild care arrangements implies a wage subsidy tO cOver 10st

wages. Second, costs are certainly not the only child care constraint, as a

woman might prefer an option which is not viable because of locational

constraints (or other reasons). For these reasons, it is not clear how

interpretable the responses to questions 7 and 7a really are. However,

question 8 (main reason for preferring other arrangement) does suggest that

the principal reasons for preferring an alternate arrangement relate to the

potential quality of the other arrangement, rather than other arrangement

characteristics.

The r-ponses to the questions asked of those not working are

consistent with the notion that the dominant reason for non-employment for

women at this life cycle stage is voluntary; 71 of 135 indicated that they

prefer not to work while their children are young, and only a minority are

interested in working at this time. (It is also useful to note that the large

majority of respondents was able to provide a codable response to this

question.)

In addition, the responses of most of the non-working women regarding

what they view as reasonable costs are highly consistent with the actual costs

being incurred by all the women who are currently paying for child care.

Overall, on an hourly basis, the current child care users indicate a median

9
wage of $1.50 an hour, with 40 percent paying $1.25 an hour or less and 40

percent $2.00 or more. In comparison, the 131 non-working women who responded

to the question on llrea~onablecosts for a full time week” of child care

(question 12), gave a median response of $50, with 40 percent indicating $40

or less and 30 percent $55 or more. The modal response was $50. Thus, while

this cost distribution was slightly below the actual costs reported as being

incurred by those using care, the hypothetical responses were not

substantially different from the reported reality.

Finally, with regard to the non-workers, it is useful to note that the

large majority specify a relative as the caregiver when they go out for

reasons such as entertainment or shopping. There is little tendency to seek

formal arrangements. However, there is no hesitancy regarding being able to

specify the caregiver which is used for non-employment reasons.

Issues linked with child illness and employment are, not surprisingly,

of some importance in evaluating child care/employment considerations for

3

women at this life cycle stage. Fully one quarter (52 women) of the

employed women had a child who was ill within the past month and 18 of these

52 women lost time from work because of this illness. Thus about two thirds

of these employed women were able to make arrangements which permitted them to

go to work while their child was ill. Of those who lost time from work, most

missed two or fewer days and about one third had to take leave without pay.

The important issue here is not the predse quantification of the patterns

reported by the experimental sample but rather that (1) the phenomenon, which

is of some importance, is analytically non-trivial and (2) women appear to be

able to effectively report on this issue.

In contrast, only very small numbers report other difficulties with

their child care arrangements over the last month. Only 5 of 213 reported

difficulty with their regular arrangement and only 10 reported that they were

late to work or had to leave early. Indeed, only 18 of 216 (about 8 percent)

indicated that over the last 12 months, “problems with the cost, availability

or quality of child care influenced their employment in any way.’! This very

modest percentage reporting problems would appear to run counter to some

3. Only a limited number of questions focused directly on unemployed mothers

because there were clearly only going to be a limited number of unemployed

mothers in the study.

10
popular perceptions. On the other hand, it ~ consistent with the earlier

stated result that few of the women would change arrangements even if costs

were not a constraint. Thus, either these results reflect reality or else

there is something in the wording of the questions which affects the woman’s

frame of reference in such a way as to cause women to not consider a full

range of options. Interviewer notes indicate that while some mothers did not

actually miss work, they did occasionally take children to work when their

caregiver was unavailable.

The final child care dimension considered in Part 3 of the interview

schedule examined the issue of potential availability of relatives for child

care assistance for those women who were currently employed as of the survey

date. Somewhat surprisingly, the vast majority--l9O of 213 working women

indicated that they had a relative living in the vicinity. The respondents

were in all instances able to identify the work status of these relatives.

Only a modest percentage of these relatives, about 25 percent, are currently

helping with child care on a regularly scheduled basis. The high percentage

of mothers who have a relative (blood or through marriage) nearby may partly

reflect the fact that the sample is not fully representative of all mothers;

that it disproportionally includes women who married at younger ages md have

limited education. It is probable that these younger marrieds are less likely

than other women to live far away from their familial neighborhood/

4

environment.

As a general comment regarding all of the attitudinal and behavioral

items in this section of the questionnaire, there is no evidence of

unwillingness or inability to answer questions. The cost-related information

was provided on request, although, of course, its accuracy (regarding actual

amounts) can be questioned. Generally speaking, the items on reasons for not

working or child care preference were answered fairly readily and, as

importantly, the pre-determined code categories were generally appropriate;

the number of responses which needed to be coded into the “other” category was

generally modest.

4. Several respondents indicated in marginal notes that they”would have

reported male relatives if the opportunity to do so had been there.

11
Part 4: Information on “Usual Child Care” for School Age Children

,,

.

Because this pretest took place during the months of June and July,

when most school age children are out of school for the summer, the pretest

included a few essentially retrospective questions probing into the ‘usual

arrangements made for school age children after school. The bulk of the

school age children in this study are between the ages of five and nine, and

thus either in kindergarten or in the earlier elementary school grades. of

the 222 youngest school children, 196 were between the ages of five and nine;

102 of their next oldest siblings (“second youngest school age child”) were

also considered in this evaluation.

As may be noted from Table 3, the vast majority of the school age

children follow a traditional post-school child care mode--they apparently go

home and are supervised in the home by someone who is age 14 or older. Of

those who don’t go home, the largest proportion are in some other fairly

traditional child care arrangement--cared for by other relatives, a baby

sitter, or in a child care center. Very few mothers reported latch key

arrangements. There are also very few reports of multiple arrangements.

Apparently, the vast majority of the children are in the same arrangement

every day. It is possible that if the children in this study were somewhat

older, more latch key and other non-traditional arrangements would have been

5

report’ed. It is also possible that some parents might have been reluctant

to report about latch key or other “socially less acceptable” arrangements.

What the data suggest is that analysis of the incidence and consequences of

latch key arrangements will in all likelihood not be feasible unless one has a

very large sample of children, given the rarity of reporting of this

arrangement.

5. It is perhaps useful to note that “many parents parenthetically mentioned

that their children spent some time unsupervised but responded ‘Trio!!to the

latch key questions. The wording of our questions did not allow for this

option.

12
Evaluation of the Retrospective Reports on Child Care Arrangements

Ongoing over the Past Year

The results from the retrospective data collection in the child care

supplement clarified a variety of issues regarding the efficacy of collecting

child care information in a quasi-event history format. Some useful data were

collected, and some significant problems are apparent. The problems reflect

limitations which are inherent to retrospective data collection, imprecision

in some of the child care concepts and oversights (inconsistencies) in how we

defined current and retrospective arrangements.

The major conceptual problem relates to how one defines an

arrangement--either current or retrospective. It is apparent from both the

coded responses as well as marginal notes in the interview schedules, that the

concept of a continuous child care arrangement is extremely ambiguous. At one

extreme, a mother may use a particular arrangement continuously, for a large

number of hours each week vith no intermittent interruptions. At the other

extreme, one has situations where a “caregiver,,is ~~sentially cOntinuOUSIY

!roncall,,,but only used intermittently. A grandmother living nearby (or even

the other parent) may fall into this catego~--as might a more formal

caregiving arrangement. This poses a major problem when one attempts to

obtain ,,beginning,,and ~!endingf!dates for a particular arrangement. With

regard,to a current arrangement, one must consciously make a judgement as

what starting date one wishes. Does one want the date that caregiver was

to

first utilized by the respondent? Alternatively, one could focus on the last

date.that the caregiver began assisting the respondent. Or, perhaps most

reasonably, one can focus on a start date that allows the caregiver to have

had modest interruptions (2 weeks?). This last option may be most appropriate

in many instances, but perhaps not always easy to quantify, because of recall

problems.

From an event history perspective, this issue becomes inherently even

more complex if one chooses to consider several child care episodes with the

same child care personnel as distinct arrangements. For example, a respondent

may have used the same arrangement several times over the past year, with

distinct time breaks between use. The gaps between use may or may not have

been filled by other arrangements.

Somewhat parallel to this problem Of specifying beginning and ending

dates for arrangements, is the problem of defining hours for arrangements. It

13
is likely that respondents are better able to recall arrangements which not

only lasted longer, but which were used for a greater number of hours vithin a

particular time span. In the extreme case, an arrangement that lasted 40

hours in a given week will be recalled more readily than a three hour

babysitting arrangement. (In addition, arguably, a paid arrangement will

perhaps be more readily recalled than a non-paying arrangement, unless

specific probes for non-paying arrangements are utilized). Thus, in a

retrospective context, unless one is probing for every hour of care utilized

in a time frame, one needs to specify an hour minimum for a given arrangement.

This is inherently complex, particularly if a respondent used the same

arrangement for more than one distinct period during the year, and used that

arrangement for a different number of hours each time.

In our case, we limited retrospective data collection to arrangements

which lasted at least ten hours in any one week during the year. In addition,

we failed to clarify whether or not using the same caregiver in two distinctly

different arrangements constituted one or multiple arrangements. It is

apparent from our results that many respondents were uncertain as to whether

or not to count the same arrangement more than once, even if that arrangement

was used intermittently over the course of the year vith substantial time

breaks between usage. In the extreme case, a respondent who may have used a

particular arrangement off and on for a particular child over a period of mny

years may have given thechild’s birth as the start date, and..als.o..indicate

that she is still (on occasion) using that arrangement. Because of these

serious constraints, the data we have collected do not lend themselves to

developing an annual week by week or month by month child care use profile;

apparent “stop” and “start” dates encompass substantial time periods during

which the arrangement may not have been used.

One other problem, which reflected an oversight on our part in the

construction of t“heinterview schedule, intensified the difficulty of defining

the duration of arrangements. Data were collected for all current

arrangements lasting at least one hour in the past week. However, the

retrospective data collection was limited to arrangements lasting at least ten

hours in ~ week. This made it difficult to attempt to link the current and

retrospective arrangements. For example, a mother might have reported on a

survey week arrangement which lasted four hours. She then reported once again

on that same arrangement in the retrospective child care history, because

14
there was

least ten

schedule,

some other time during the year when she used

hours. We had not allowed for this option in

so it created confusion for some interviewers

that arrangement

the interview

and respondents.

introductory paragraph in the retrospective section asked the respondent

counting your current arrangement(s), have YOU used any other child care for

at

The

“not

at least 10 hours in any one week since the last interview.” Because of this

oversight, quite a bit of hand editing was necaasary in order to eliminate

arrangement duplication. Future data collection could minimize problems of

this type by attempting to use parallel definitions of child care for current

and retrospective arrangements and, most importantly, assigning I.D.s to each

arrangementt. The latter procedure, if properly done, would permit researchers

to program the child care information in whatever way is deemed most

appropriate. Using IDs would allow one to remove duplication, if one desires,

to compare arrangements over the full retrospective time period, defining the

same arrangements which are temporally dispersed as the same or different

arrangement(s), depending on one’s inclination.

One final issue regarding the time frame of the retrospective section

warrants mention. The retrospective section of the questionnaire collected

information on arrangements used since the date of last interview. From a

post-hoc perspective, this was ill advised, for methodological and perhaps

substantive reasons. A preferable option would have been to collect the

retrospective child care information for a full twelve or thirteen month

period for all respondents, beginning the event history on June or July 1,

1988- Using a last interview starting point rasulted in a gradual diminution

of the level of child care use-as one moved backwards into the summer months

of 1988. We could certainly partially resolve this issue by translating our

levels of start and stop dates into proportions. However, this would pot

resolve the problem of selective bias due to certain kinds of women (e.g.,

employed? home at certain hours) perhaps being interviewed earlier or later in

the summer. This, of course, is only an issue in a continuing longitudinal

survey such as this, where there are major reasons for linking with a prior

survey date (e.g., to link child care histories with employment history).

Notwithstanding the above issues, the retrospective child care data

collection provided some useful analytical results--beyond the insights

already suggested. Substantive differences (and similarities) between current

and retrospective child care arrangements are highlighted in this section, as

15
.

they help clarify biases inherent in the essentially different methods used to

collect current and retrospective data.

Table 4 summarizes the information on current and retrospective child

care arrangements. It includes distributions of the number of arrangements

currently used by mothers and the number of additional arrangements used

during the preceding year. Most of the comparisons of current and

retrospective patterns will essentially contrast distributions limited to

current arrangements lasting ten hours or more during the survey week with

distributions for retrospective arrangements which were used for ten hours in

at least one week during the year. Thus, the comparisons are only

approximately comparable. When arrangements of less than ten hours are

excluded from the current arrangement distribution, only about 56 percent of

women report having any current childcare assistance compared with about 75

percent when all arrangements are included. Thus, eliminating arrangements of

fewer hours makes the percentage using care much more comparable with current

usage statistics reported in other data sets, including earlier NLSY rounds.

The largest majority (about 73 percent) of mothers using arrangements lasting

ten hours or more have only one such arrangement and about 94 percent of these

mothers using care report only one or two such arrangements.

Excluding all current arrangements, only about 31 percent of all the

mothers reported on an additional arrangement over the preceding year which

lasted at least ten hours in any one week. Thusj if these data are at all

reliable, it may be concluded that the bulk of the more extensive arrangements

which a woman has during a given year can at least be identified as ongoing as

of one point in time. In addition, the intensity of involvement with the

retrospective arrangements is somewhat less certain than is the involvement

with the current arrangements, reflecting the ambiguity regarding the hours

the retrospective arrangements are/were being used. In this regard, it is

important to note that of the 109 women who report at least one retrospective

arrangement, 17 (16 percent) indicate that that arrangement is still ongoing

as of the survey week, but that they are not using that arrangement for ~

hours at this time. This highlights the issue alluded to above--that there

are a significant number of child care users who define the duration of

arrangements (including beginning and ending dates) in terms of ready

availability of the caregiver, not just in terms of current usage. These

caregivers, who frequently, although not always, are family members, pose a

16
significant definitional problem in defining meaningful child care event

histories.

Tables 5A and 5B describe the temporal patterning of current and

retrospective child care arrangements, both in terms of seasonality and

longevity. A comparison of the starting dates for the ongoing as well as

retrospective child care arrangements suggests some important similarities as

well as differences. With regard to the monthly patterning of start dates,

child care arrangement ,,start~,~in lg89 are separated from the results for

preceding years because the interviews were all carried out in June and July.

Most of the current (ongoing) arrangements which started in 1989 began in May

or June, many within just a few weeks of the survey date. This trend partly

reflects the fact that some parents are beginning summer arrangements for

school and preschool age children to cover the out–of-school summer months.

Part of the high reporting level for May and June also probably reflects an

above average tendency to recall recent events. When one examines the pre1989.distribution of starting dates for current arrangements (focusing on the

January through June distribution for all preceding years),.it is aPParent

that”May and June are above average months for beginning child =re

arrangements. This same pattern also exists when one examines retrospective

arrangements--those which for the most part have been terminated prior to the

1989 survey week.

The start dates for pre-1989 current arrangements as well as for

retrospective arrangements both show a pronounced pattern of arrangements

beginning in August and September, coinciding with the beginning of the school

year. Thus, the patterning of the starting dates for both current and

(recent) past arrangements both appear to have a high face validity in that

the most prevalent beginning dates coincide with the months when parents are

most likely to be making new arrangements.

The patterning of “ending dates“ for retrospective arrangements,

described in Table 6, is harder to interpret. Part of the reason for the very

low percentage of arrangements ending in the early calendar year months is

that these months occurred prior to the preceding interview date for some

respondents; thus their arrangement ending date would not have fallen within

the time reference period being investigated. The high proportion of

arrangement ending dates in the Spring of 1989 undoubtedly is closely linked
with the ending of the school year, a transition point for many child care

,\

arrangements.

Focusing briefly on the annual patterns suggested by Tables 5A, 5B,

and 6, it appears that the arrangements which respondents report as ongoing

for ten hours or more as of the survey date are indeed more likely to typify

the more permanent arrangements a respondent uses th- do the other

retrospective arrangements reported. It is of some interest to note that

almost 40 percent of all current arrangements (used for at l=st ten hours in

the survey week) are reported as having started in 1987 or earlier, compared

vi th 15 percent for the retrospective arrangements. This probably reflects

the fact that arrangements which are considered more satisfactory are probably

more likely to be sustained for a longer time period--up to the present time.

In addition, one’s recollection about the history of recent or ongoing

activities is probably better than recall about historic events. Third, many

parents probably sustain a major arrangement on as continuing a basis as

possible and then supplement that arrangement as needed. Analytically, this

patterning has at least two implications. One needs to be cautious about

assuming that lengthy ongoing arrangements are being used continuously, that

from an event history perspective, one can assume a continuity of use between

stop and start dates. This will be clarified vith some of the subsequent

tabular materials.

As importantly, one must be cautious when interpreting quality

dimensions of child care.when examining a cross-section. If one can

(reasonably) assume that the current arrangements, which on average can be

documented as much longer lasting than terminated (retrospective)

arrangements, are more satisfactory to the respondent, making judgments about

satisfaction or quality from tbe cross-section must be done cautiously. The

less satisfactory arrangements are more likely to have been discontinued and

thus less likely to appear at any one point in time!

Similarly, if one is focusing on the length of child care arrangements

and how these arrangements are linked with other family characteristics, one

needs to be doubly cautious, as both issues of seasonality and centinuity are

important. These phenomena are highlighted in Table 7, which describes the

duration, in months, of current (ongoing),aswell as retrospective child care

arrangementts. It may be noted that a substantial proportion of current

arrangements are ve~ recent, coinciding with the fact that the interviews

18
occurred in late spring-early summer when respondents are beginning summer

arrangements. It should,also be noted that a secondary “heaping” occurs at

nine and ten months, coinciding with the beginning of the preceding school

year. Thus, at any point in time the “shape” (and probably the nature) of the

duration distribution will be extremely sensitive to the time of year the

interviews are completed. For example, interviewing carried out in September

or October will result in a duration distribution which includes a

particularly large proportion of new arrangements (and probably a secondary

heaping at 11 and 12 months). It may also be noted that the duration

distribution of retrospective arrangements has a somewhat similar shape,

suggesting that even most arrangements which have been terminated are driven

by the same seasonal factors. However, in this case, the disproportionate

heaping of durations up to three months is consistent with the fact that

respondents are more likely to recollect retrospective shorter term

arrangements from recent time periods. In addition, it is important to

highlight one other fact about the retrospective durations which is not

immediately evident from Table 7; almost 50 percent of the retrospective

arrangements of more than 12 months duration fall in the category of “ongoing”

arrangements (see noato Table 7), which are ~ being utilized for any hours

in the survey week but which the respondent undoubtedly considers as

available if needed. Thus, not only are retrospective arrangements less

likely to be long term (as described by the distributions in Table 7), but

those which are long term are probably much more likely to represent noncontinuous arrangements than are comparable long term current arrangements.

Table 8 synthesizes information about the types of arrangements which

predominate in ongoing and retrospective child care situations. The results

summarized in this table demonstrate (1) the difficulties inherent in

gathering comprehensive data for retrospective periods and (2) potential

analytical biases which may exist if one treats cross-sectional data as

typical of all child care arrangements.

The first point to note from Table 8 is that the nature of the current

arrangements is, not surprisingly, sensitive to the number of hours that the

child care arrangement is used; arrangements lasting more hours are less

likely to be care by the ,,otherparent,,or a relative, and (not reported in

table) more likely to be paid arrangements. Thus, the more one probes for

casual, shorter term arrangements (as we have done in this pretest), the more

19
.

.

accurately the mix of arrangements pOrtrays the reality of current child care.

Because of our probes for arrangements (1) lasting at least one hour during

the week, (2) not necessarily linked with employment, and (3) of a less formal

nature, it appears that this experiment picked up a fuller representation of

ongoing child care arrangements than most other surveys have accomplished, as

well as a larger proportion of all women using child care. (As a tautionary

note, part of this differing level and mix also undoubtedly represents a

seasonality factor, that the respondents were mostly interviewed in June;

however, one of our comparisons is with 1986 NLSY child care data, which also

were disproportionately collected in the summer.)

In contrast, the retrospective data on child care which.was limited to

arrangements lasting at least ten hours in any one week provided very

different results, more consistent with what has traditionally been available.

Respondents who reported retrospective arrangements were much less likely to

list parents and grandparents, and much more likely to mention non-relatives

and, to some extent, daycare centers. In short, truncating the data

collection on the basis of hours shifts the child care distribution rather

dramatically away from informal and towards formal (paid) arrangements. From

the perspective of data collection, it is clear that the representation of

child care arrangements will be very different for current and retrospective

periods unless one maximally strives to use comparable definitions of child

care for both, a difficult task at best. Analytically, the implications are

of equal importance. Any examination of either determinants or consequences

of child care in a longitudinal cont=t will be difficult to interpret unless

(1) standardized definitions are used and, more importantly, (2) these

definitions are as comprehensive as possible. For example, evaluating the

child development consequences of child care will probably he very sensitive

to the extensiveness of the arrangements included in the child care

definition. Thus, child care use defined in a more limited manner--including

comprehensively ~ extensive arrangements of a more formal nature and

shortchanging shorter term (but perhaps diverse) arrangements which are less

formal--may have very differing implications for measuring impacts on

childrens’ development. Indeed, one might argue that, from a child

development analytical perspective, it may be counter-productive to collect

only selective, longer term child care input information. Analysis based “on

20
this limited data could well produce erroneous results leading to

inappropriate policy conclusions.

A final analytical comment relates to the quality and utility of

retrospective attitudinal child care information which can be collected in a

large s=le survey of this type. Table 9 synthesizes the reasons which

respondents gave for beginning their current and retrospective child care

arrangements. Nor surprisingly, the dominant reason given for starting an

arrangement was employment related--a job was started, or a previous uregiver

had ceased to provide assistance. In addition, relatively substantial

proportions of women gave idiosyncratic re=ons (“other”) which could not

readily be coded in any coherent manner. It is suggested that in a

longitudinal survey which attempts to collect event history information on a

variety of employment, family, and education characteristics, retrospective,

even relatively ,,hard,,attitudinal information of this kind is Relatively

worthless. More insightful information on the linkage between employment and

child care can be gained by comparing behavioral event-history information on

employment or schooling and child care, comparing beginning and ending points

of different events, if this information is carefully collected. The fact

that an arrangement was started because a prior one had ended is also not

particularly useful analytically unless one also has comprehensive information

about the reason for the change in arrangements, something which may not be

easy to determine retrospectively. Analytically, in a longitudinal context, a

more fruitful approach is to gather comprehensive objective and subjective

information about current arrangements, and then wait and see what the

implications are for subsequent change or continuity.

As a final note on the apparent validity of the retrospective child

care information, it is useful to note that there is virtually no evidence of

respondents being unable to recall the characteristics of retrospective

arrangements. While we have no external cross-checks on the quality of the

reports, it should be noted that virtually all of the mothers provided

responses to the questions on the number of hours per week retrospective

arrangements lasted, the number of children cared for in the arrangement, the

child to adult ratio, educational attainment of the caregivers, costs of the

arrangement, as well as “informationabout early childhood training received by

the caregiver. It is particularly interesting to note that a “yes” or .“qo”

answer (26 yes and 82 no) regarding early childhood training was given by all

21
except one parent for the primary retrospective arrangement reported. Whether

the “nos” in some instances really represent “don’t bows” cannot be answered.

In retrospect, the information on the number of children in an arrangement,

number of caregivers, and characteristics of caregivers were.probably

relatively easy to recall because the vast majority of children were in

arrangements which included three or fewer children and either one or two

adults.

Summary and Recomendat ions

1. Current Child Care

Overall, about

arrangement lasting at

Use

three quarters of the mothers had a child care

least one hour during the survey week, a proportion

considerably higher than has typically been reported in other studies. Eighty

six percent of the care users reported that they used one or two arrangements

during the week. Ninety seven percent of care users report no more than three

arrangements in the survey week.

The survey week arrangements reported on appear to include a larger

proportion of informal (e.g., care by spouse and other relatives) and a

smaller proportion “offormal arrangements than has typically been found in

other studies. Paralleling this result, it was found that a substantial

majority of women do.not make any cash payments for their current

arrangements.

It is likely that the apparently more comprehensive nature of current

child care reported in this experiment reflects at least in part our emphasis

on encouraging women to report on any and all child care arrangements, formal

or informal, lasting for as short a time as one hour a week, regardless of the

, employment orientation of the mother. In addition, we put no constraint on

the number of arrangements which a mother could report on. In this regard, we

have strong empirical evidence that allowing for three arrangement results in

almost complete coverage.

Based on the above, we recommend (for the NLSY or other comparable

surveys) that a comprehensive introductory paragraph (similar to that used in

this study) establishing the broad scope of the intended data collection be

utilized and that.data be collected on primary, secondary, and tertiary

22
arrangements. Our evidence suggests that this should provide reasonably

comprehensive coverage regarding all ongoing child care activities.

The relatively low proportion reporting that their arrangements are

paid for suggests the likelihood that other arrangements of a quid pro quo

nature may be operative for some significant proportion of all arrangements.

This could include the provision of exchange services or other benefits (such

as food and/or housing) to caregivers. Information on arrangements of this

kind could gr~tly enhance analyses focusing on either social-psychological or

economic exchanges for child care services. For this reason, it is

recommended that subsequent data collection consider the inclusion of at least

a preliminary attempt to measure such less easily quantifiable costs.of child

care arrangements.

Several sections of the child care interview schedule asked a variety

of questions about the characteristics of current (and retrospective)

arrangements, including questions on costs, hours, caregiver education, the

number of children included in the arrangement, and the number of caregivers

in the arrangement. In addition, where a caregiver was used for more than one

child, questions were asked regarding the hours each (of the two youngest

children) was watched and the costs associated with watching each child. With

only minor exceptions (e.g., the education/specialized training of caregivers

in formal arrangements), the respondents were able to provide what appears to

be reasonable responses. In addition, the results support the notion that

mothers frequently are able to provide separate cost estimates where more than

one child is being watched in a particular arrangement.

Similarly, the respondents were able to provide important and

apparently reasonable infOrmatiOn abOut the extent to which they needed to

absent themselves from work to meet child health-related ssigencies in the

home or to cover for a ‘)snafu”in their child care arrangement. The results

suggest sufficient response variability to warrant collecting this information

on a larger scale.

The results of the attitudinal data collection, particularly regarding

hypothetical child care needs, are somewhat more ambiguous. The respondents

expressed a high level of satisfaction regarding their current child care

arrangements and only a small proportion expressed a willingness to change

arrangements even if their ideal were available ‘lcost-free.. tT It may be that

this high level of satisfaction reflects the possibility that the questions

23
.

were not sufficiently broad. For example, a woman might, in an ideal

situation, prefer to remain home with her children, but the foregone cost--

giving up real wages--may have been viewed as beyond the scope of the

question. It is suggested that the question, as worded, perhaps has limited

analytical potential, and that future data collection attempts in this area

consider several broader concepts; in particular, specifically, what would it

take to get a mother to stay home with her child, if this is truly the option

she would prefer?

2. Retrospectively Reported Child Care Arrangements

In general, the seasonal patterning of current and retrospectively

reported arrangements appear reasonable, and are comparable to each other; tbe

beginning and end of the summer show above average tendencies to begin new

child care arrangements. Thus, analysis of child care duration, and its

linkage witb other explanatory factors, needs to be sensitive to the month the

data are collected. Data collection during the summer or early fall results

in child care duration characteristics which will include a high proportion of

short term arrangements.

It appears that reports on retrospective arrangements tend to underreport the more casual, shorter term arrangements and overemphasize more

formai arrangements. This tendency, of course, at least partly reflects our

definitional constraints on the question on retrospective child care--that the

arrangement must have been used for at least ten hours in a week at some time

during the year. The retrospective reports also appear to include a

substantial number of arrangements of an intermittent nature, used now and

then but not on a continuing basis. Indeed, the longer term retrospectively

reported arrangements are more likely to fall in this category. In general,

however, retrospective arrangements are less ltiely to be long term,

suggesting a “selection bias;” preferred arrangements are more likely to be

continued into the present than less preferred arrangements. This suggests

the potential for significant analytiul bias if one uses current (ongoing)

child care arrangements as proxies for all arrangements when examining child

care quality issues.

From an event history perspective, it is unclear whether the

retrospective event history data collected in this experiment is of sufficient

24 
quality to have significant analytical value. Within the context of a survey

such as the NLSY, to be of significant analytical value, the child care event

dating must be of sufficient precision so that it can be matched with parallel

event history information on, for example, employment, education, and family

experiences. For the reasons described in this report, it is not likely that

the retrospective child care data parallel in quality the other event history

data.

It is likely that retrospective information of sufficient quality

could be co=ected, but the time and monetary costs of doing so should not be

underestimated~ The data collection would require the following; beginning at

a fixed historical point (preferably matched with other events, using

appropriate calendars), one would need to move forward week by week (or at

least month by month) collecting the following information: (1) child care

use/non use for each week/month interval including the precise identification

of the arrangement, the number of hours per unit time the arrangement is being

utilized, as well as any complementary information desired. Whatever

definitions are used for the collection of retrospective child =re

information should parallel the definitions used in collecting current child

care data. In addition, each unique arrangement should have an identification

number. If an arrangement is repeated at a different point in time, it could

then be readily identified and linked. At the point where any arrangement is

terminated for any length of time, an ending date would be obtained. At the

point where any arrangement is initiated or re-initiated, a beginning date

would be obtained. Ideally, the collection of these event history data would

parallel equally precise data collection on other activities which tend to be

linked vith child care use--such as employment, education, or family events.

The instructions relating to this child care data collection should ask

respondents to describe (1) child care used for as little as one hour a week,

and (2) arrangements of a formal or informal nature, including any and all

care by relatives- The over-riding emphasis must be on actual hours that a

child care arrangement was used in a given period, not simply access to a —

possible arrangement. It should be apparent that careful data collection of

this type can be time consuming and expensive. However, any lesser efforts

may well result in the collection of event history data which, on the surface,

app-rs usable, but in reality is severely limiting from a longitudinal

analytical perspective.

25
From the perspective of examining the consequences of child care for

subsequent child development, the definitions of child care used may be of

critical importance. Child car: use defined in a limited manner, focusing on

longer term, more formal arrangements may affect in major ways analytical

results in this area of research; the results may be of value, but

generalizations regarding the costs or benefits of child care will perhaps be

less feasible”and will require more extasive qualifications.

.

26
TABLE 1

Distribution of Number of Survey Week Arrangements

and Percent of Total Child Care Hours in Each Arrangement

Distribution of .Percentof Hours

Arrangement in Arrangement

Arrangement No. 1 61.2 70.5

,, No. 2 27.0 “20.7

,, No. 3 8.9 5.9

,, No. 4 2.4 2.0

,, No, 5 0.5 ..0.8

Total 100.0 100.0

27
TABLE 2

Patterning of Current Primary Arrangement Starting Dates

(Arrangement Currently Lasting 10 or More Hours Weekly)

Annual Pattern

1989 (6 months) 60

1988 49

1987 23

1986 10

1985 9

1984 8

1983 5

Pre 1983 7

No Date 3

Monthly Pattern

pre 1989

December

November

October

September

August

July

June

May

April

March

February

January

4

6

5

27

25

5

7

9

4

6

1

9

1989

27.

10

5

7

6

2

28
TABLE 3

Where Does Child Usually Go After School?

Youngest Child Next Youngest Child

Total 218 10? ,..:.

Home 157 78

Supemised 147 69

Not Supervised 10 9

After School Care/Latch Key

Program 8 2

Playground 2

Relative’s House 20 : ~.

Friend’s House 2

Babysitter Outside Home 19 4.

Day Care Home 2 2

Child Care Center 6 4

Somewhere Else 2 3

Multiple Locations 14 9

29
.

TABLE 4

Number of Child Care Arrangements Being Used by Women: Current

Arrangements Lasting at Least 10 Hours in the Survey Week and

Other (Retrospective) Arrangements used During Year

Current Retrospective

Arrangements Arrangements

Number of Arrangements Frequency Percent Dist. Frequency Percent Dist,

No Arrangement 154 44.0 238 68.6

One Arrangement 141 40.6 69 19.9

Two Arrangements 41 11.8 25 ._7.2

Three Arrangements 10 2.9 11 3.2

Four Arrangements o 0.0 2 0.6

Five Arrangements 1 0.3 2 0.6

T.OTAL 347 100.0 347 _. 100.0

Note: Current arrangements in this table include all =rangements used at

least 10 hours in the survey week; retrospective arrangements include

all arrangements used at least 10 hours in any..yeek..during the year.

This includes 25 retrospective arrangements which are “ongoing” as of

the survey week ev- though the arrangement was not used during that

week.

30
TABLE 5A

Annual Pattern of Starting Dates for Current and Retrospective

Childcare Arrangements Lasting 10 Hours or More:

Frequencies and Fercent Distribution

Frequency Distribution

Current Retrospective Current Retrospective

Annual Pattern Arrangements Arrangements Arrangements Arrangements

TOTAL 241 166 100.0 100.0

1989 (6 mont.h.s).. 7a 43 32.4 25.9

19aa 69 98 28.6 .59.0

1987 37 10 15.4 6.0

19a6 11 .5 . 4.6 3.0

19a5 13 5. 5.4 3.0

19a4 a o 3.3 0.0

19a3 8 0 3.3 0.0

Pre 1983 17 5 7.1 3.0

31
}“ 1

,,

TABLE 50

Monthly Patternof StartingDates for current andRetrospectiveChild.are

Acrnngem. nts Lasting 10 Hours or More: Frequencies and Percent Distributions

current Retrospective Current

Monkhly Pattern 1989 Pre 1989

Retrospective

1989 P,. 1989 1989 Pt. 1989 1989 P,. 1989

ToTAL

January

February

March

April

May

July

August

September

October

November

December

78 159

4 16

7 1

7 6

7 8

16 12

31 15

11

31

39

6

8

6

43 124 100.0

8 4 5.1

4 2 9.0

5 1 9.0

5 1 ,9.0

11 5 20.5

10 6 41.4

14

25

29

17

8

11

( ) = Distribution limited to Xanuary thro”gb June

100.0

10.0

(27.6]

0.6

‘(1.7)

(1::!)

5.0

{13.8)

(2::;)

(2:::)

6.9

19.5

24.5

3.8

5.0

3.8

100.0

18.6

9.3

11.6

11.6

25.6

23.3

200.0

3.2

1.6

0.8

0.8

(2:::)

4.3

(31.6)

11.3,

20.2

23.4

13.7

6.5

8.9
TA8LE 6

Pattern of Ending Dates for Retrospective Childcare Arrangements

Annual Pattern

Ongoing 25

1989 (6 months) 106

1988 36

Monthly Pattern Frequency Percent Distribution

TOTAL 142 100.0

6/89 46 32.4

5/89 23 .16.2

4/89 14 9.9

3/89 10 7.0

2/89 6 4.2

1/89 7 4.9

12/88 10 7.0

11/88 6 4.2

10/88 5 3.5

9/88 6. .4.2

8/88 5 3.5

7/88 4 2.8

33
TDLE 7

Duration (In Months) of Current (10 or More.Hours:

Retrospective Child Care Arrangements

Current Arrangements Retrespective Arrangements

Interval in Months Frequency Percent Dist. Frequency Percent Dist.

Total

Less than One

1

Note:

:

4

5

6

7

8

1:

11

12

13-23

24-35

36 an~ over

MEDIN

244 100.0

42 17.2

16 6.6

;:;

2.9

1.6

163

31

17

100.0

19.0

10.4

12 7.4

13 8.0

7. 4.3

6 3.7

3 1.2 6 3.7

7 2.9 7 4.3

0 :.; 8 4.9

20 16

21 8:6 12 ;::

7

5

29

2.9

1:::

20 8.2 5 3.1

49 20.1 12 7.4

10.4 5.2

The retrospective arrangements include 25 arrangements which are

,tongoing,,but “hich were not used for any hours in “the SUrveY week.

Current arrangements are limited to those being used at least 10 hours

in the survey week34
TABLE 8

Type of Current and Retrospective Care Arrangements:

Percent Distribution

Current Arrangements ..—...Retrospective

Less Than 10 Hours Arrangements

10 Hours or More Total

TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Other Parent 21.7 13.2 16.0 7.4

Sibling 3.6 1.7 2.3 1.2

,.

Grandparent 30.1 29.9 30.0 22.9

Relative 21.7 13.8 16.3 ...17.7

Non-Relative 18.1 24.J 22.6 34.2

Day Care “Center 3.6 13.8 10.5 . 13.J

Nursery/Preschool 1.2 2.9 2.3 ...2.9

35

.
Note:

TABLE 9

Main Reason for Beginning Current and Retrospective

Child Care Arrangements: Percent Distribution

Current Retrospective

Arrangements Arrangements

TOTAL 100.0 100.0

Started Work 32.8 42.4

Changed Hours 2.5 2.0

Job Search 1.9 0.7

Started School 3.2 2.6

Other Activity 6.1 4.0

Child Needs Playmate 2.5 2.0

Stopped Previous Caregiver 19.4 19.2

Other 31.5 27.2

Includes all primary and secondarycurrent and retrospective

arrangements.

36
NORC-- 4497-6a

CASE # OMB 1220-0109

/-7/ EXP 12-31-89

INTERVIEWER: (CODE ONE)

Personal Interview .....1 /

/0

Telephone Interview ....2

NORC

University of Chicago

CENTER FOR HUMAN RSSOURCE RESEARCH

Ohio State University

National Longitudinal Survey

of

Labor Market.Experience

ROUND ELEVEN

Youth Survey, 1989

CHILDCARE SUPPLEMENT

.
.

TIME ~ ~ AM/MIDNIGHT

BEG~: + ~ pM/NooN

1{-/~ /3-/+

ASK WOMEN ONLY WITH AT LEAST ONE CHILD UNDER AGE 14 IN HR.

1. INTERVIEWER: RECORD DATE OF INTERVIEW.

1 I I I I 819 1

MONTH DAY YEAR

We would like to ask you some questions about how your (child/ren)

(was/were) cared for last week during any time you could not do so.

Wetre interested in knowing about anyone who helped care for your

(child/ren) for at least one hour last week.

Please think about any childcare help you had, regardless of the

reason. Please include any caregiver - person or place - who helped

you vith your (child/ren) while you were working, going to school or

church, or doing any other activity. We want to know about any kind

of helD. and who the Derson or facilitv was -- whether familv. nonfamily~‘day care cent~r or whatever. ~lease do not count re~ular

school as childcare. We are interested in any b=re or after school

care your (child/ren) may~a..e received.

2. Would you say that last week was a fairly typical week in terms of

the kind and amount of childcare help you usually receive?

Yes....(sKIPTo 0.4)......... 1

.....(ASK A)............... O

No.

A. Why was it not a typical week? RECORD VKRBATIM AND CODE ALL

THAT APPLY.

R/SPOUSE/PARTNRR WORKRD ................................. 01

R/SPOUSE/PART~R DID NOT WORK ........................... 02

R/SPOUSE/PARTNER WENT TO SCHOOL/CLASS ................... 03

R/SPOUSE/PARTNER DID NOT GO TO SCHOOL/CLASS .................04

CHILD(REN) HOME FROM SCEOOL (temporary).................. 05

CHILD(REN) HOME FROM SCHOOL (sumer). .................... 06

CHILD(REN) AT CMP ...................................... 07

R/SPOUSE/CHILD SICK ..................................... 08

RIS FAMILY ON VACATION ..................................

RELATIVS(S) VISITING LAST WEEK .......................... ::

CHILD(RBN) AWAY FROM HOME LAST WEEK (NOT cAMP) .......... 11

OTHER (SPECIFY) 12

dc- f
cc-2

3.

4.

5.

When was the last week that you consider “typical”?

NO typical week.......... 0000 I I L + 47- 50/

MONTH

Did anyone help you care for your (child/ren) last week?

Yes..................................... 1

No.....(SUP TO PART 3, PG. CC-7)...... O

Please give me the name of each caregiver YOU used in the last

week (beginning with a week ago Sunday).

A.

B.

c.

D.

LIST CAREGIVBR NAMES IN coL. A OF CHILDC~ CEMT mu. n

PROBE: Was there anyone else who cared for your (child/ren)

for at least 1 hour during the past week? CONTINUE PROBING

UNTIL R SAYS “NO other caregiver.” USE A 2ND CHILDCARR CHART

1,~1,lF M~~ TH~ 15 C~GI~RS.

CODE TYPE OF CAREGIVER FROM LIST BELOW. IF CAREGIVER AGE OR

RELATIONSHIP TO CHILD IS NOT OBVIOUS, PROBE. ENTER C_GIVBR

TYPE IN COL. B OF CHART “AA” NE~ TO NAHE OF CARBGIVHR.

CHILD’S OTHER PARENT OR STEPPARENT ............. 01 ASK C

R’S PARTNER .................................... 02 ASK C

CHILD‘S GRANDPARENT ............................ 03 ASK C

CHILD‘S SIBLING UNDER AGE 15 ................... 04 ASK C

CHILD’S SIBLING AGE 15 OR OVER ................. 05 ASK C

OTHER RELATIVE OF CHILD UNDER AGE 15 ........... 06 ASK C

OTHRR RELATIVE OF CHILD AGE 15 OR OVER ......... 07 ASK C

NONRELATIVE OF CHILD UNDER AGE 15 .............. 08 ASK C

NONRELATIVE OF CHILD AGE 15 OR OVER ............ 09 ASK C

DAY CARE CENTER OR GROUP CARE CENTER ........... 10 S~P TO D

NURSERY SCHOOL OR PRESCHOOL .................... 11 SKIPTOD

DAY CAMP ....................................... 12 S~P TO D

OVB~IGHT ~SIDENCE CAMP........................ 13 SUPTOD

BEFORE/AFTER SCHOOL CARE/LATCH-KEY PROGRAM ..... 14 S=P TO D

CHILD CARES FOR SELF ........................... 15 SUP TO D

R’SWORK OR ACTIVITY AT HOME ................... 16 SHPTOD

R CARES FOR CHILD AT WOW OR PLACE OF ACTI~TY. . 17 SUP TO D

OTHER ARRANGEMENT .............................. 18smPTo D

Where was (CHILD) usually cared for?

Child’s hone........................... 1 ENTER CODE

Other private home..................... 2 IN COL. C FOR

Other place............................ 3 EACH CAREGIVBR

HOW many hours altogether did you use (CAREGIVER) for

childcare last week (Sunday through Saturday)?

ENTER TOTAL HOURS IN COL. D OF CHART “AA.“

51/
cc-3

E. Did you pay for this care?

.

Yes....(CIRCLE“l” IN COL. E) ............... 1

No.....(CIR!O”’!O”IN COL. E & SUP TO ~) ... 0

F. Altogether, how much did you pay for this care?

ENTSR AMO~ IN COL. F.

G. PROBE IF NECESS~Y: Was that per hour, per day, per week, or

what?

Per hour.................................... 01

Per day..................................... 02

Per week.................................... 03 BNTER

Bi-Weekly (Every 2 week) ................... 06 IN

Per month................................... 05 COL. G.

Per year.................................... 06

Other....................................... 07

H. I~ERVIEWER : IS Q.5D (COL. D) 10 EO@S OR MOR8?

YEs....(CIRCLEilltfIN COL. H AND GO TO I)....... 1

NO.....(CIRCLE”O” IN COL. H AND GO BACK TO

0.5BFORNS~ CAREGIVER)............... O

I. What is the education level of the main person responsible

for caring for your (child/ren) in this arrangement?

Less than high school grad......................... 01

High school grad or bed............................ 02 ENTER

Some college or post secondary vocational training. 03 CODE

4 years college.................................... 04 IN

More than 4 years college.......................... 05 COL.I

Masters degree.....~...............................06

PhD or above....................................... O?

Donrt how ......................................... 98

J. Has the (main) person who is responsible for caring for your

(child/ren) received any education or training specifically

related to children - such as early childhood training or

child psychology?

Yes.......................... 1 ENTER cODE

No........................... 0 IN COL. J

Donrt how ................... 8

K. Including your om (child/ren), how many children are cared

for in this arrangement? (IF C~ER C-, MCORD # IN

CHILD’S CLASSROOM.) ENTER # OF CHILDREN IN COLUMN K.

Donrt kow .................. 98
CC-4

L. How many adults directly supervise the children in this

arrangement? ENTER # ADULTS IN COLUW L.

Don’tkov ................... 98

M. When did you start this arr~gement? (E~ER MONTH ~ YEAR

IN COL. M).

Donrt how ................... 9898

N. What was the main reason you started using childcare at that

time? CODE ONLY ONE.

R STARTED WO~ ............................. 01

R/SPOUSE INCREASED/CHANGED WORK HOURS ...... 02

R STARTED LOO~NG FOR WORK/JOB SEARCH ...... 03 ENTER

R STARTED SCHOOL/CUSS/COURSE/TMINING ..... 04 IN

R STARTED VOLUNTEER ACTIVITY ............... 05 COL. N

RSTARTED OTHER ACTIVITY ................... 06

CHILD NEEDED PLA~TES/ACTIVITIES .......... 07

LOST/STOPPED USING PREVIOUS CAREGIVER ...... 08

OTHER ...................................... 09

0. INTERVIEWER: GO BACK TO O.5B FOR NE= CAREGIVBR,

IF NO OTEER CARBGIVER, GO TO PART 2, >AGE cc-5.
INTERVIE~R:

INTERVIEWER:

cc-5

PART 2. ~ CARS FOR 2 YO-ST ~LD~

SEE WE OF THE FACE SHEET. RECORD NME AND AGE OF RrS

YOWGEST & NE~ YOONGEST, 0~, STEF, OR ADOPTED

CHILD(~N) C~NTLY LIVING IN THE HH FROM THE WE ON

CHILDCARE CHART ‘BB.“

IF ONLY ONE CULD IS LISTED, SUP TO PART 3, PG. CC-7.

6. I would now like to ask you a few questions about the childcare

arrangements you made for(YOONGEST CHILD/NEKT YOWGEST CHILD) last

week.

A.

B.

c.

D.

E.

P.

.

.

Did you use (C_G~ 01/02/ ETC, FROM CHART “AA”) for

(YOWGEST/NE~ YOONGEST) l~t week?

Yes....{CIRCLEitI~fIN COL. A, CHART nBBW)......... 1

No.....(CIRCLE”O” IN COL. A, CHART “BB”

AND PROCEED TO NE~ CAREGIVER) .......... 0

You told us you used (CAREGIVER 01/OZ/ETC.) for (# HO~S IN

COLM D OF CHART “AA!’)hours last week. Was (CHILD) being

watched for all of those hours by (CAREGIVER/01/02/etc.)?

Yes....(CIRCLEwln IN COL B AND SKP TO D)........ 1

No.....(CIRCLE!!Oc’IN COL. B AND GO TO C) ........ 0

How many hours did (CAEEGIVER) vatch (CHILD)? ENTEE # HO~S

IN COLW C OF CHART “BB.‘1

Can you till us how much you paid (CAREGIVRR) ~ for

watthing (CHILD) last week?

Yes....(CIRCLEwlw IN COL~ D AND ASK )......... 1

No .....(CIRCLE”O” IN COLW D AND SUP TO G)..... O

How much did you pay (CAREGIVER) just to vatch(CHILD)last

week? ENTER MOM IN COL. E.

PROBE IF NECESSARY: Was that per hour, per day, per week, or

what?

Per hour.................................... 01

Per day..................................... 02 ENTER

Per week.................................... IN

Bi-Weekly (Every 2 weeks)................... :: COL. F

Per month................................... 05

Per year.................................... 06

Other....................................... 07

G. REPEAT 0.6 A-F FOR NE~ YO~GEST CHILD.
CC-6

PLEASE GO TO ~~ PAGE ----->
CG7

.

I would now like to ask you a few questions about your feelings about

childcare and how it relates to your current or recent ~ctivitie~.

7. If all childcare arrangements were available free of charge,

would you stay vith your current arrangement(s) or would you

prefer to change to a different arrangement?

Stay with current arrangement(s) ...(SKIP TO Q.9)... 1

Change to different arrangement ....(ASK A) ....... 2

A. What type of childcare would you most prefer to use?

CODE ONLY ONE.

R/MYSELF/STAY HOME WITH MY CHILD ..............

CHILDrS OTHER PARENT OR STEPPARENT ............

RrS PARTNER ....................................

CHILD‘S GWDPARENT IN CHILDtS HOME ....

CHILD‘S GRANDPARENT IN OTHER HOME ......

CHILD’S SIBLING IN CHILDrS HOME ........

CHILD’S SIBLING IN OTHER HOME ..........

OTHER RELATIVE OF CHILD IN CHILDfS HOME

OTHER RELATIVE OF CHILD IN OTHHH HOME ..

NONRELATIVE OF CHILD IN CHILDrS HOME ...

NONRELATIVE OF CHILD IN OTHER HOME .....

DAY CARE CENTER OR GROUP CARE CENTER ...

NURSERY SCHOOL OR PRESCHOOL ............

BEFOHE/AFTER SCHOOL CARE/LATCH-~Y PROGH

CHILD CARES FOR SELF ...................

i

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

M ....

......

R rS WORK OR ACTIVITY AT HOME ..................

R CARES FOR CHILD AT WORK OR PLACE OF ACTIVITY

OTHER ARHANGEMENR (SPECIFY)

. . 01

02

:: 03

.. 04

::““::

.. 07

:: ::

.. 10

:: ii

13

:: 14

15

:: 16

8. What is the main reason you would prefer a different childcare

arrangement? RECORD ~RBATIM AND CODE ALL THAT APPLY.

I can provide the best care................. 01

Child would learn more...................... oz

Child needs playmates/social setting........ 03

Prefer cafe by relative..................... 04

Reliability of arrangement.................. .05

Cost........................................

Convenience/location........................ :?

Convenience/hours........................... 08

Quality..................................... 09

Current arrangement not right for my child.. 10

Other (SPECIFY) 11

9. INTERVIEWER: SEE CALENDAR ROWS A & B. HAS R WOWD OR BEEN ON

ACTIVE DUTY IN THE PAST 4 WEEKS?

YES..-.(SKIP TO Q.14,PG. cc-9) ... 1

NO.....(GO TO Q.lO)............... O

52/

53-5~/

55/
CC-8

INTERVIEWER: Q.10 THROUGH Q.13 - FOR C~NTLY NOT EMPLOYED ONLY.

10. Mothers have different reasons for not working. What is your

main reason for not working? CODE ONE RESPONSE. DO NOT MAD

LIST.

Prefer not to work while children are young........... 01

Have problems finding satisfactory day care........... 02

Can’t make enough money to afford day care

for my children.................................... 03

Looking for work/Cantt find a job...(SKIP TO Q. 12)... 04

Not interested in working............................. os

No particular reason.................................. 06

Never worked/lackof job skills....................... 07

Pregnant/pregn”ancy.................................... 08

Other (SPECIFY) 09

11. If satisfactory childcare were svailable at a reasonable cost,

would you look for work at this time?

Yes..........................

No ........................... i

12. What would you consider a reasonable cost for a week of full-time

childcare for one child?

$u;oL~. *

13. Who takes care of your (child/ren) when you go out for

entertainment, such as a movie or out with friends, when you go

shopping, or when you need time alone? CODE ALL TEAT APPLY.

Child’s other parent or stepparent............... 01

R’s partner...................................... 02

Child’s grandparent.............................. 03

Child~s sibling underage 15..................... 04

Child’s sibling age 15 or over.”..................O5

Other relative of child under age 15............. 06

Other relative of child age 15 or over........... 07

Nonrelative of child under age 15................ 08

Nonrelative of child age 15 and over............. 09

Day care center or group care center............. 10

Nursery school or preschool...................... 11

Day camp......................................... IZ

Overnight residence camp......................... 13

Before/After school care/latch key program....... 14

Kindergarten/elementa~ /secondary school......... 15

Play group....................................... 16

Child cares for self............................. 17

Always take child along.......................... 18

Never go out..................................... lg

Other arrangement (SPECIFY) 20

!1- /z/

/3/

Iq- 19/

&-21/

22-2j/

24-2s/

26 -27/

g-;;;

3a: 33/

34-3sf

3L-37/

;:-;;;

42 -~3/

y4-4</

q~.47/

4Y-~1/

go-sl/

52 -3{

gq-55/

54-571

g-57/

.
CC-9

INTERVIEWER: Q.14 THROUGH Q.3 i ARE FOR CURRENTLY EMPLOYED WOMEN ONLY.

The next few questions are about arrangements you make either when

your (child is/children are) sick or you can’t use your remlar

childcare.

14. (Has your child/Have any of your children) been sick in the last

month?

Yes.......................... 1

No .....(SHPTO Q. 20)....... O

15. How old was that child at the time of that illness?

,.

*

OR

-

Less than 1 month............ 0000

16. Did you lose any time from work during that illness?

Yes.......................... 1

No.....(SKIP TOO. 20)....... O

17. About how much time did you lose from work? *

Less thal day................ 00

18. What arrangement did you make to be paid f6r this time away from

your job? CObF O&K.

.

PROBE, IF NECESSARY: Did you take vacation time, take sick

time, did you make a different arrangement to be pai , or

~ didn~t you get paid for this time away from your job.

Took vacation time..................... 01

Took sick time......................... 02

Worked from home....................... 03

Flex time.............................. 04

Personal time.......................... 05

Leave without pay...................... 06

Other (SPECIFY)

07
cc-lo

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

What did you do for childcare when that child was sick? CODE

ONLY ONE RESPONSE. PROBE FOR MAIN ARRANGEMENT.

R STAYED EOME ......................... 01

USED REGULAR ARRANGEME~ ..............

SPOUSE STAYED HOMR .................... ::

TOOK CHILD TO WOW ....................

RELATI~/NEIGBBOR WATCHED CHILD ....... E

CHILD CARED FOR SELF .................. 06

HIRKD SITTER ..........................

OLDER CHILD STAYED HOME ............... ::

OTHER (SPECIFY)

09 “-

A. Is this what you usually do for childcare when (your child

is/any of your children are) sick during work time?

Yes.......................’...1

No ........................... 0

And, in the last month, did you miss at least a day of work

because of a problem with your regular”childcare?

Yes.......................... 1

No.....(SUP TO Q.23)........ O

72/

HOW many times in the last month did you miss at least a day of

work because of a problem with your regular childcare?

What was the problem vith~the childcare arrangement the last time

you had to miss at least a day of work? tibC ONE.

Caregiver ill.......................... 01

Caregiver% fsmily ill............... 02

Provider had personal problem.......... 03

School closad (SCHEDULED).............. 04

School closed (UNSCHEDULED)............ 05

Program/center closed. ................. 06

Couldn't pay........................... 07

Other (SPECIFY)

08

In the last month, were you late to work or did you leave early

because of a problem vith your regular childcare?

Yes.....(ASK A)............... 1

No .....(SKPTOQ.25) ........ O

A. Did you have to come late, leave early or both?

Came late . . . .. . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . 1

Left early .. .. . . . .. .. . . . . . .. . 2

Both......................... 3

/3 -/4/
24.

25.

.

. 26.

27.

28.

.

.

29.

Cc-n

How many times in the last month did YOU get to work late or did

you have to leave early because of a problem with your childcare

arrangements?

*

In the last 12 months, have problems with the cost, availability,

or quality of childcare ever influenced your employment in any

way? For example, prevented you from working, led you to change

jobs, or change the hours you worked?

Yes.......................... 1

No .....(SKIP TO Q.28)........ O

What was the main problem? Did it have to do with the cost,

availability or quality of the childcare available? CODE ONLY

ONE ~SPONSE.

cost .. .. . . .. . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . . . 1

Availability................. 2

Quality...................... 3

Other (SPECIFY)

4

What effect did that problem have on

Did it cause you to.....(READ LIST).

Not

you?

Not look for a job?.............. . .. .. .

Turn down aiob offar?.................

Change jobs?~ ..........................

Quit your job?..........................

Change your hours?.....................

Change the days you work?..............

Not enroll in a job training program?..

Quit a job training program?...........

Not enroll in school?..................

Quit school?............................

CODE EACH ITEM.

—

YES —.NO

1

1

1

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

1 0

1 0

1 0

1 0

1 0

counting any relatives who live in this household, do you

have any relatives or in-laws 18 years or older who live within a

15 minut drive of where you live,(other than a husband or

?

boyfrien .

Yes....(SUP TO Q.30)........ 1

No ........................... O“

Do you have any relatives or in-laws 18 years or older who live

more than 15 minutes but less than 45 inutes drive of where you

3

-her than a husband or boyfrien ?

Yes..................................... 1

No .....(SUP TO PART 4, PG. CC-13.)..... O

I 7-/8/

30/

31/
CC-12

30. HOW many such relatives do you have? Do YOU have...

Just ine............................... 1

Two to five relatives, or .. . .. . . .. .. . . . 2

More than five such relatives?......... 3

B

IF Q. 3Q = 1, STOP (Is thisArelative/ Does your (~PE OF

ASKING THIS SERIES Do these relatives ~MTI~) currently

WHEN R SAYS “YES” include)... work outside the

IN PART A.

/

home full- or part–

time?

Your mother?

Your sister?

Your mother-in-law?

Your mother’s mother?

Your fat her’s mother?

Yes.....(ASK B)... 1 34/ Yes,full-time.... 1

No . . . .. . . .. .. . . . .. o Yes.Dart-time.. .. 2

Yes.....(ASK B)... 1 36/

No................ O

... .

No,doesn’t work

outside the

home............. O

Yes,full-time..... 1

Yes,part-time..... 2

NO ,doesn’t work

outside the

home.............. O

Yes.....(ASK B)... 1 3t/ Yes,full-time..... 1

No ................ O Yes,part-time..... 2

No,doesn’t work

outside the

home.............. O

Yes.....(ASK B)... 1 40/ Yes,full-time..... 1

No................ O Yes,part-time..... 2

No,doesn’t work

outside the

home.............. O

Yes.....(ASK B)... 1 (~ Yes,full-time..... 1

No ................ O Yes,part-time..... 2

No,doesn’t work

outside the

home.............. O

35/ 

37/

39/

31. At the current time, (does this relative/do any of these

relatives) help you vith childcare on a regularly-scheduled basis

while you are working?

Yes.......................... 1

No........................... 0
PART 4.

INTERVIEWER:

.

.

.-

“

CC–13

USUS1 Child~re: WO YO~est S&OOl Age Children

RECORD NANE & AGE

OF R’S (YO~GEST/NE~

YODNGEST)0~ , ADOPTED,

OR STEP CHILD(REN)

AGE 5 OR OLD=

FROM THE HHE.

IF NO CHILDREN

AGE–5 OR OLDER,

SKIP TO PART 5,

PG. CC-17.

Now we would like to ask about

your (child/ren)’s activities

during the regular school year.

YODNGEST CHILD

5YRS+

32. Does (YO~GEST CHILD/NEKT

YO~GEST CHILD) attend

school now or during

the regular school year?

Yes..(GO TO Q.33).. 1 q

No.....(ASK A)..... O

A- Has (he/she) ever

been enrolled in

regular school?

Yes..(GO TO Q.33).. 1 4

No..(SKIP TO

Q.38)......... O

NE~ YO~GEST

CHILD 5 YRS +

. . (y3:

1

.(ASiA )::: O

)..(GOTO

Q.33)... 1

).(SKIP TO

0.38).... O
CC-14

33.

34.

35.

What grade in school

does (he/she) attend? YOUNGEST CHILD

(IF SCHOOL NOT IN SESSION, 5YRS+

ASK FOR GRADE LAST ATTENDED.

IF CHILD ATTSNDS UNGRADED

SCHOOL OR IS JUST TKNG

CLASSES, ASK FOR GRADE

HE/SEE WOULD BE IN IF IT

WERE A REGULAR SCHOOL). HNDmGARTEN..(ASK A).. 00

lST GRADE.....:.. 01

2ND GRADE ........ 02

3RD GRADE ........ 03

4TH GRADE ........ 04

5TH GRADE ........ 05

6THGWE ........ 06

7TH GRADE ........ 07

8TH GRADE ........ 08

9TH GRADE ........ 09

10TH GRADE ........ 10

llTH GRADE ........ 11

12TH GRADE ........ 12

OTHER 13

A. Does (he/she)

attend kindergarten

all day or half day? All day ........ 1

Half day ....... 2

Is (YOUNGEST CHILD/NE~

YOUNGEST CHILD) currently

attending summer school?

Yes ............ 1

No ............. 0

We would like you to think of what

(CHILD) normally does during the

regular school year. After a usual

school day, where does (he/she)

normally go after school?

CODE ALL THAT APPLY.

Home......................................... 0

After school care/latch key program.......... 0:

Playground................................... 0:

Libra. .................. ................... 0,

Shopping mall................................ 0,

Relative~s house............................. o

Friend7s house............................... o

Towork/to a job............................. 0

Babysitterrs outside house................... O

Daycare home................................. 11

Childcare center............................. 1:

Somewhere else (SPECIFY) 1:

NSKT YOUNGEST

CHILD 5 YRS +

3-

~c~lti bE~K c 

V\.. (ASK A).. 00 /0-1[/

........... 01

........... 02

........... 03

........... 04

........... 05

........... 06

........... 07

........... oa

........... 09

........... 10

........... 11

........... 12

13

5/ ............ 1

............ 2

z/ . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

............ 0

f~fi,/ . . . . . . . . . 01

fl-bal......... 02

61-LZ1......... 03

L3-6#/......... 04

GGu,l......... 05

iT~/ ......... 06

61-70/......... 07

71-72.......... oa

73.?4/......... 09

7G7L/......... 10

77-7f/......... 11

79-b/ 12

/3/
CC-15

i

,-

>

YoUNGEST ~ILD NEXT YOUNGEST

36. INTERVIEWER: IS MORE 5 YRS + CHILD 5 YRS +

THAN ONE PLACE CODED

IN Q.35? YEs...(ASK A)......... :

NO,..(GO TO Q.37 ..... (

A. Where does (CHILD)

go most of the time?

CODE ONLY 0~ .

Home..................................... 0

After school care/latch

key program........................... 0

Playground............................... 0

Library.................................. C

Shopping mall............................ C

Relative’s house......................... C

Friend’s house........................... C

Towork/to a job......................... C

Babysitter’s outside house............... C

Daycarehode......... .................... 1

Childcare center......................... 1

Somewhere else (SPECIFY) 1

37. INTERVIEWER: IS Q.35 CODED

,lH~MElt(ol) ?

YES...(ASK A)......

NO. ..(GO TO 0.38)..

A. When (CHILD) comes

home after school,

is someone age 14

or older at home

when (he/she) gets

there?

Yas..(GO TO Q.38)..

No . . . .(ASK )......

B. HOW long is (CHILD)

home without supervision?

Less than 1 hour ... 00

*

38- I~ERVIEwR: IS THERE A 2ND

OWN, STEP, OR ADOPTED CHILD AGE

5 YRS OR OLDER LISTED ON THE HHE?

Yes....(REPEAT Q.32-Q.37..... ............ 1

FOR NE~ CHILD)

t/ ...(ASK A).. 1

...(GO TO

Q.37)... O

lf40/

.. .. . . . . . 01

. . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . ;:

......... 04

......... 05

.........

......... :;

.........

......... ::

......... 10

......... 11

12

Y~ . . . (ASK

1

..(G~);6.

Q.38). O

~~/ . . (Go To

Q.38). 1

...(ASK

B). .. O

7~G0 TO PART 5

4 f/

50/

51-52

No.....(GO TOpmT 5).1...... ............ 0
CC-16

PMASE GO TO ~~ PAGE ----->
CC-17

PART 5. -LDCARE HISTORY: RSTROSPE~~

39. INTERVIEWER: ~ THERE ~ CAEHGIVERS LISTED ON CHILDCARE CARD

,,~,,~o HAVE A II1!1CoDED IN CoL~ H?

YEs . . . .(RBAD A) ............... 1

NO .....(RHAD B)............... O

A. NOW we would like to ask about any * childcare YOU may

have used since (DATE OF LAST INVBRVIEW.) Again, we would

like to how about any caregiver - person or place - who

helped with your (child/ren) while YOU were working, going to

school, at church, on vacation, or doing an

We are only interested in arrangements that a Htfl:::.lo

hours in any one week. (REFER TO CARD ‘AA.”) You’ve told me

about [C~ENT C~GIVBR(S) OF 10 HO~S OR MORE]. Not

counting your current arrangement(s), have YOU used any other

childcare for at least 10 hours in any one week since (DLI).

Yes....(GO TO Q.40)................ 1

NO .....(SKIP TO Q.53, PG. CC-27)... O

B. We would like to ask about any childcare YOU may have used

since (DATE OF LAST INTERVIEW). Again, we would like to know

about any caregiver - person or place - who helped with your

(child/ren) while YOU were working, going to school, at

church, on vacation, or doing any other activity. We are

interested in knowing about anyone who helped care for your

(child/ren) for at least ~ hours in any one week. Not

counting yourself, did anyone help care for your (child/ren)

for at least 10 hours since (DLI)?

Yes....(GO TO Q.40)................ 1

NO ....(SKIP TO Q.53,’PG. cC-27)... O

40. INTERVIEWER: SEE ROWS A & B OF CALENDAR. WAS R IN THE MILITARY

OR EMPLOYED AT ANY TIME SINCE DLI?

Yes....(READ A)............... 1

NO.....(READ )............... O

A. (HAND CALENDAR TO R.) Please use the calendar if it helps YOU

remember your activities since (DATE OF LAST INTERVIEW).

Please give me the names of each of the caregivers you may

have used for at least 10 hours per week since (DATE OP LAST

INTERVIEW). If you used more than one caregiver at the same

time, please tell me about each one you used separately.

Let’s start with (DLI) and work forward to the present.

B. Please think back to what you were doing at the time of

(DATE OF LAST INTER~EW) . Please give me the names of each of

the caregivers you may have used for at least 10 hours per

week since (DATE OF LAST INTERVIEW). If you used more than

one caregiver at the same time, please tell me about each used

separately. Letts start with (DLI) and work forward to the

present.

s3/

54/

55/

56/
41.

42.

43.

CC-18

CARBGIVER #1 CARBGIVER #2

RECORD CAEEGIVER NAME(S), ONE PER

COLUMN, STARTING WITH DLI. PROBE:

What was the name of the next

caregiver since (DLI)? CONTINUE

PROBING UNTIL R SAYS l’Noother

caregiver.” CODE ONE PER COLUNN. NAME

IF MORE THAN 6 CAREGIVRRS, USE

2ND CHILDCARB SUPPLEMENT.

Child’s other parent/stepparent in

child’s hake.......................... ....... 01

Child~s other parent/stepparent in

other home............................ ....... 02

R’s partner in child’s home............... ....... 03

Rrs partner in other home................. ....... 04

Child’s sibling~r over in childfs home ....... 05

Child’s sibling 15 or over in other home.. ....... 06

Childrs sibling under 15 in ch~

home.................................. ....... 07

Child’s sibling under 15 in other

home....................=..... .... ....... 08

Child’s grandparent in childrs home....... ....... 09

Cbildrs grandparent in -home. ........ ....... 10

Other relative in child~s home............ ....... 11

Other relative in other home.............. ....... 12 -

Non-relative in chlld~s home.............. .......-13

Non-relative in other home................ ....... 14

Day/group care center..................... ....... 15

Nursery/preschool......................... ....... 16

Other arrangement (SPECIFY) 17

When did YOU start

using (CAREGIVER) for

childcare?

What was the main reason

you started using childcare at that time?

R STARTED WORK ................................. 01

R/SPOUSE INCREASED/CHANGED WON< HOURS .......... 02

R STARTED LOOKING FOR WOWJOB SEARCH .......... 03

R STARTED SCHOOL/CMSS/COURSE .................. 04

RSTARTED VOLUNTEER ACTIVITY .................... 05

RSTARTBD OTHBR ACTIVITY ..:.................... 06

CHILD NEEDED PLAYMATES/ACTIVITIES .............. 07

LOST/STOPPED PMVIOUS CARRGIVRR ................ 08

oTHER (SPECIFY) 09

........... 02

........... 03

........... 04 

........... 05

........... 06

........... 07

........... 08

........... 09

........... 10

........... 11

........... 12

........... 13

........... 14

........... 15

. . . . . . . . . . . 16

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When did YOU ~ using

(CAREGIVER)?

CC-20

CAREGIVER #1 CAREGIVER #2

Why did you stop using this child

care arrangement? DO NOT HBAD

LIST. CODE ALL THAT APPLY.

RECORD VERBATIM.

Provider unreliable................

cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. .. .. .

I moved............................

Hours no longer convenient.........

I

. . . . . . . . . 01 4q-50f......... 01

......... 02 5f-5~1......... 02

......... 03 5i.5~L........ 03

......... 04 55-5hl........ 04

Provider no ionger provided care... ......... 05 5J.5gl........ 05

Child too old (outgrew/arrangement

child ready for different arrangement.... 06 Tv@/ ........ 06

Change in employment............... ......... 07 bJ-6%1........ 07

Transportation/location problems... ......... 08 L3.Lqf........ 08

Dissatisfied with program/provider. ......... 09 LOLL!........ 09

Child too young.................... ......... 10 G7-L?I........ 10

Could afford better care........... ......... 11 6f-7u/........ 11

Was no longer eligible for care.... ......... 12 7J-7Z1........ 12

Name came to top of waiting list... ......... 13 7*7ql........ 13

Agency/other support discontinued.. ......... 14 75-741........ 14

Enrolled child in summer Drogram... ......... 151n-7f/........ 15

Took child out of care ternpo=arilyand fiE41tibEK 06

and could not get back in...... ......... 16 10-n~........ 16

Other (SPECIFY) 171“-J3~ 17

HOW many hours per week

did YOU use (CAREGIVRR)

for childcare?

ENTER NUMBER OF HOURS.

HOW many children were

i

cared for all together

hy (CAREGIVER)? IF

CENTER CARE, DO NOT

INCLUDE # IN ENTIRE I

PROGWM . i

ENTER NUMBER IN CLASSROOM.

HOW many adulta !

directly supervised

the (child/ren) in

this arrangement?

1

* ‘:;*

L - 23/

35-36/

37-38/

3q-ue(

4J‘q~i

qj-~u[

4s-4L/

q7-42/

qT-50/

5/-52/

53-5~/

59-60/
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CAREGIVER #3

. . . . . . . . . . . 01 b!

........... 02

. . . . . . . . . . . 03

........... 04

. ........... 05

........... 06

........... 07

.

. . . . . . . . . . . . 1(

. . . . . . . . . . . . 0

...(ASK A).. 1 i

(GO TO 0.52) O

. . . . . . . . . . . ol’f/

........... 02

........... 03

........... 04

...........

........... z:

07

2ARSGIVER #4

lJ-

........... 01 13,

........... 02

........... 03

........... 04

........... 05

........... 06

........... 07

. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 {q

............ 0

...(ASK A).. 1 1~

(GO TO Q.52) O

CC-23

. . . . . . . . . . . Ol!t

........... 02

........... 03

........... 04

........... 05

........... 06

07

:=GIVER #5

. . . . . . . . . . ol:~

.......... 02

.......... 03

.......... 04

.......... 05

.......... 06

.......... 07

. . . . . . . . . . . 1 al

........... 0

..(ASK A).. 1 ~[

GO TO Q.52) O

36

. . . . . . . . . . . 01 3?

. . . . . . . . . . . 02

........... 03

........... 04

........... 05

. . . . . . . . . . . 06

07

. . . . . . . . . . 01

.......... 02

.......... 03

.......... 04

.......... 05

.......... 06

.......... 07

. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . ;

..(ASK A).. 1

:GOTO Q.52) O

3t.3?/

+0/

4(/

. . . . . . . . . . . 01 qf- 50/

........... 02

........... 03

. . . . . . . . . . . 04

........... 05

. . . . . . . . . . . 06

07
CC-24

52. INTERVIEWER: ARE THE%. ANY CWGIVBR #1

OTERR CARRGIVRRS

NOT YET ASKED

ABO~?

Yes ..(~ASK

Q42–52

FOR ~~

cm

GIVBR).. 1

No ..(GO TO JI

PART 6), O

..(~RQ.42-

mm cmCARR

GI%R) ... 1

..(GO TO 62/

PART 6)... O

.

.
CC-25

CARSGIVER #3

..(REASK Q.42-

“52 FOR

NE~ CAREGIVER.... 1

..(GOTO f:

PART 6).. o

.

L

CAREGIVER #4

..(MAsK Q.42-

52 FOR

NS~ CAKEGI~R. ... 1

..(GO TO 5VJ

PART 6).. O

CAREGIVER #5

..(REASK Q.42-

52 FOR

NE~ CARSGIVRR.... 1

..(GO TO Cq

PART 6).. O

CARRGIVER #6

..(usE 2ND

CHILDCARS

SUPP.)... 1

..(GO TO 56/

PART 6).. O

.,.
PWSE GO TO ~~ PAGE ----->
cc-27

PART 6. INTERVIEWER ~WS

INTERVIEWER:

53. In general, was the respondent’s understanding of the

Good? ........................ 1

k

Fair? ........................ 2

Poor? ........................ 3

questions,..

67/

.

●

54. List questions that confused the respondent or that asked for

information the respondent had trouble remembering.

None....(GO TO Q.55).......... o al

or

PART Q~STION

A. 59/ 60-4f/

B. L21 .43 -Lql

c. b51 ~4-671

Describe Problem(s): _tgl

55. List qu-tions with skip errors, questions that were confusing to

you, or questions that otherwise didn’t work. EXPMN.

None ....(GO TO Q.56).......... O

or

Part

A. 70/

B- 73/

c. %1

.- Describe Problem(s):

~fl

Question

7/-?2/

7q-7s/

v-781

77/

1

~EG/ti b~~ /0

56. INTERVIEWER: RRCORD YO~ INTERVIEWER ID.

~1 /6-/5/

TIME ~ ‘~( AM/MIDNIGHT

ENDED ] I I [ [ L PM/NOON

16~/ 7/ /?/9/
.. [

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