Latinos' Use, Desire, and Type of Non-Parental Child Care Arrangements

Abstract

Using the Early Childhood Program Participation Survey of the 2001 National Household Education Surveys Program, this study analyzes the use, desire, and type of non-parental care among Latinos in the United States. These nationally representative data indicate that when controlled for child and household characteristics, Latinos and non-Latino Whites do not differ in the use of care. However, among those parents who have exclusive care of their child, Latinos are significantly more likely to desire non-parental care if it is affordable and/or accessible. Latinos with non-parental care arrangements are significantly more likely to choose relative care compared to center-based care.

Key words:

• Latino child care
• early education

Notes

¹On a more practical level, there is a general lack of nationally representative data that would allow for statistically sound disaggregated study of Latinos in the United States. This too is the case for the study of Latino child care and early educational experiences.

²This research was unable to compare Latino child care experiences with African American child care experiences. The African American sample size was not sufficiently large to allow for the conducting of multinomial logistic regression analysis.

³Children who spent an equal number of hours in two or more arrangements were excluded from the sample. This constituted less than 2.3% of either the Latino or non-Latino samples.

⁴The survey question was as follows: “Do you feel there are good choices for child care where you live?”

^aNon-weighted sample size.

^bWeighted population estimate

*p < .05.

***p < .001.

⁵The terms non-Latino Whites and Whites are used interchangeably.

^aOnly mothers present in the household were included.

^bExpressed as a range from 1 (less than $5,000) to 14 ($100,000+)

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

*p < .05.

***p < .001.

⁶These analyses indicated the odds of having a particular type of arrangement as the primary type. So, although a child might have been identified as having relative care as the primary arrangement type, he or she may have had non-relative care or center-based care, or both, as well.

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

⁷Due to small sample sizes, the analysis of the Latino subsample collapsed the full- and part-time categories.

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

⁸The 2001 ECPP has 11 questions relating to the relative importance of various child care provider characteristics, including shared beliefs, flexible hours, and reasonable cost. However, robust statistical analysis of the data is impossible because there is very little variability in the responses to these questions; the vast majority of respondents deemed all of these criteria to be very or somewhat important.