Factors affecting turnover among family child care providers: A longitudinal study

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Abstract

The high turnover rates evident among family child care providers undermine the quality of care provided to children. In this study, we followed 57 family child care providers longitudinally to identify precursors of turnover. Job stress, education, and training directly affected turnover. Providers most likely to leave the profession were more educated, less trained, and reported higher levels of stress. Training and the presence of the provider's own young children indirectly affected turnover through their relationship to job stress. Providers who cared for their own preschool children experienced higher levels of job stress. In contrast, training was associated with lower job stress, but only for less educated providers. The presence of the provider's own young children and training also were associated with greater job satisfaction, but job satisfaction was unrelated to turnover. Finally, there was a curvilinear relationship between job tenure and job stress and, to a lesser extent, turnover. Providers who had been caring for children between 2 and 8 years reported the highest levels of job stress and turnover, although turnover rates were also high during the first 2 years of beginning family child care.

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    This article is based on a master's thesis submitted by the second author to the School of Human Resources and Family Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This article resulted from research conducted under Project No. ILLU-60-0307 undertaken by the first author through the Agricultural Experiment Station, College of Agriculture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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