Early Care and Education: Work Support for Families and Developmental Opportunity for Young Children

An Urban InstituteProgram to AssessChanging Social PoliciesOccasional Paper Number 51Assessingthe NewFederalismEarly Care andEducation: WorkSupport forFamilies andDevelopmentalOpportunity forYoung ChildrenKathryn ToutMartha ZaslowAngela Romano PapilloSharon VandivereChild TrendsEarly Care andEducation: WorkSupport forFamilies andDevelopmentalOpportunity forYoung Children Early Care andEducation: WorkSupport forFamilies andDevelopmentalOpportunity forYoung ChildrenKathryn ToutMartha ZaslowAngela Romano PapilloSharon VandivereChild TrendsOccasional Paper Number 51An Urban Institute Program to Assess Changing Social PoliciesThe Urban Institute2100MStreet,N.W.Washington,DC20037Phone:202.833.7200ax:202.429.0687E-Mail:paffairs@ui.urban.orghttp://www.urban.org Copyright © September 2001. The Urban Institute. All rights reserved. Except for short quotes, no part of thisbook may be reproduced in any form or utilized in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopying, recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from theUrban Institute.This paper is part of the Urban Institute’s Assessing the New Federalismproject, a multiyear project to monitorand assess the devolution of social programs from the federal to the state and local levels. Alan Weil is the pro-ject director. The project analyzes changes in income support, social services, and health programs. In collabo-ration with Child Trends, the project studies child and family well-being.The paper has received funding from The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, TheRobert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Davidand Lucile Packard Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Charles StewartMott Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, the Stuart Foundation, the WeingartFoundation, The Fund for New Jersey, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, andThe Rockefeller Foundation.The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consid-eration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, itstrustees, or its funders.The authors would like to thank Gina Adams, Jeffrey Capizzano, Jennifer Ehrle, Sandy Hofferth, Aletha Hus-ton, Nancy Geyelin Margie, Kristin Moore, Stefanie Schmidt, Kristin Smith, Freya Sonenstein, and Matt Stag-ner for reviewing earlier drafts of this paper and providing helpful comments. Assessing the New Federalismis a multiyear Urban Institute projectdesigned to analyze the devolution of responsibility for social programsfrom the federal government to the states, focusing primarily on healthcare, income security, employment and training programs, and social ser-vices. Researchers monitor program changes and fiscal developments. In collaborationwith Child Trends, the project studies changes in family well-being. The project aimsto provide timely, nonpartisan information to inform public debate and to help stateand local decisionmakers carry out their new responsibilities more effectively.Key components of the project include a household survey, studies of policies in 13states, and a database with information on all states and the District of Columbia,available at the Urban Institute’s Web site (http://www.urban.org). This paper isone in a series of occasional papers analyzing information from these and othersources.About the Series ContentsExecutive SummaryviiIntroduction 1Paper Organization2Early Care and Education for All Children Age Five and Under and Not in School3Patterns of Early Care and Education for Children of Different Ages5Primary Arrangements5Hours in Nonparental Care7Number of Nonparental Arrangements8Summary of Age Changes in Nonparental Care9Patterns of Early Care and Education by Employment and Income9Employment, Income, and Primary Arrangements for Infants and Toddlers10Employment, Income, and Primary Arrangements for Three- to Five-Year Olds11Employment, Income, and the Hours of Nonparental Care12Employment, Income, and the Number of Nonparental Arrangements13Special Focus: Work Related Activities of Nonemployed Responding Parents15Summary of Employment and Income Patterns16Conclusion16Appendix—Tables19Notes24References26About the Authors27 Executive SummaryBy the time they enter kindergarten, most children have already had experiences witha variety of nonparental caregivers in either home-based or center-based child caresettings (Hofferth et al. 1998). Children’s use of and experiences in early care andeducation are influenced by a variety of interrelated family and community factors,including the quality and availability of care. Certainly, income and aspects ofparental employment play key roles in