Beyond an “Either–Or” approach to home- and center-based child care: Comparing children and families who combine care types with those who use just one

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Highlights

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    About one-fifth of 4-year-olds in a national sample attended both home- and center-based non-parental child care.

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    Mothers who prioritized school readiness were more likely to combine home-based care with a center than use home care only.

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    Mothers who prioritized cultural similarity were more likely to combine center-based care with a home than use a center only.

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    Children attending centers, alone or along with home care, averaged higher reading and math scores than those in homes only.

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    Results were inconsistent for children's average socioemotional outcomes when they did and did not combine care types.

Abstract

Most research focuses on preschoolers’ primary non-parental child care arrangement despite evidence that multiple arrangements are relatively common. Using the nationally-representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort, we compare characteristics and outcomes of families whose 4-year olds attend both home- and center-based child care with those who attend either home- or center-based care exclusively or receive no non-parental care at all. We find that about one fifth of 4-year olds attend both home- and center-based child care. Mothers’ priorities for care (getting their child ready for school, matching their families’ cultural background) and perceptions of good local care options predict their combining home- and center-based care. Preschoolers score higher on reading and math assessments, on average, when they attend centers, alone or in combination with home-based child care, than when they are cared for only in homes, either by their parents or by others. Preschoolers’ average socioemotional outcomes generally do not differ between families who do and who do not combine care types. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

Section snippets

Type of care and child outcomes

We begin by reviewing the larger body of research that documents the average ways in which children's cognitive and socioemotional outcomes associate with the type of primary non-parental child care that they attend. A brief summary of this literature is that children who attend centers average higher cognitive development but more problem behaviors than children who attend home-based child care. Due to space constraints, we refer to comprehensive reviews of this literature that draw these

Prior research on multiple care arrangements

Nearly 3 in 10 (28%) of 3- and 4-year olds with employed mothers are regularly cared for in more than one non-parental child care setting each week (Laughlin, 2010). Yet surprisingly little research has examined parents who combine care arrangements. Studies that do so have focused on whether parents used more than one arrangement, rather than on which types they combined. They also emphasized the potentially negative aspects of using multiple arrangements, an important starting point given

The present study

Our study builds on prior research by focusing on preschool-aged (4-year-old) children, distinguishing families who combine a home and center child care arrangement from those who combine two centers or two homes, examining a larger set of parental perceptions of care, and considering a wider range of child outcomes (both cognitive and socioemotional) together in a single study. We take advantage of a large national data set that offers sufficient sample sizes for separating each care

Study design and sample selection

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) is a nationally representative, longitudinal study of children drawn from vital statistics birth records in 2001 (Snow et al., 2007). The study oversampled children who were Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian, Alaska Native, and Chinese, who were twins, and who were very low birth weight. Seventy-four percent of eligible families participated in the initial 9-month interview producing an initial sample size of 10,700 (all sample

Describing configurations of non-parental child care

In Table 1, we list the 10 non-parental child care configurations we identified plus the exclusive parental care category, as well as the sample size, average hours in care, and percentages of families using each configuration. The categories included the combinations of focal interest: home-based child care combined with a center that is not funded by Head Start and home-based child care combined with Head Start. As noted above, we did not distinguish hours in care for families combining

Discussion

Using the nationally-representative ECLS-B, we found that nearly one out of every five preschoolers combined home-based and center-based non-parental child care arrangements. Descriptively, combining home-based child care and center care was particularly likely among families with employed mothers and particularly unlikely among families with Hispanic mothers, 28% and 15% respectively. In contrast, being above or below 200% of the federal poverty line was unrelated to the chances of combining

Limitations

As with all secondary data analyses, our study had strengths and limitations. One strength of our study was the large size of our sample, allowing us to have sufficient numbers of families to study various configurations of non-parental child care. As an initial description of families who combined center- and home-based child care for 4-year olds, our national sample was ideal for painting a representative portrait. Our focus on 4-year-olds allowed us to highlight the potential benefits of

Conclusion

One out of every five preschoolers regularly spent time in both a home-based and a center-based child care arrangement. Families who combined home and center care appeared to be meeting their priorities for both getting their child ready for school and having a familiar caregiver who shared their background and beliefs. Perceived good child care choices in the community also associated with combining care versus using only home-based child care. Children who attended centers, alone or in

Acknowledgments

The research presented here was supported in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, through Grant R01HD060711. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute. An earlier version of this paper was presented in the paper session on Parenting Challenges at the National Council of Family Relations meetings (November 17, 2011, Orlando, FL).

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