Demography, Vol. 25, No.2, May 1988 Child Care for Preschoolers: Differences by Child's Age Arleen Leibowitz. Linda J. Waite. and Christina Witsberger Rand Corporation, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, California 90406 Because of the high rates of employment of mothers, a large and increasing number of preschool children receive regular care from someone else. This article develops and tests hypotheses about the choice of child care arrangements for younger and older preschool children, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women. We argue that appropriate care depends on the age of the child. It includes care by the mother or a paid provider in the child's home for children aged 0--2 and mother care and nursery school or center care for those 3-5. We estimate models of the mother's employment and choice of child care separately for younger and older preschoolers. Our results show that need for care, presence of substitutes for the mother, financial resources, and preferences all affect both full-time care by the mother and the type of child care chosen by working women, although they affect these two decisions in different ways. Over the last three decades, women's levels and patterns of employment have altered substantially. Not only do more women work for pay now than at any point since data have been collected, but women's lifetime patterns of employment have also changed. As a result, 63 percent of all women with children under 6 years old currently participate in the labor force. Three decades ago, fewer than 20 percent did (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1975, 1987). This phenomenon has generated concern about how the children of working mothers are cared for and how the various alternatives to mother's care may affect their health, development, and general welfare. In addressing these issues, research has treated infants and preschool children as a single group. Such treatment ignores the fact that as children grow older, their needs change, thereby changing the kinds of care most appropriate for them. Literature on child development suggests that the characteristics of the most appropriate, and potentially the highest quality, care change with the age of the child even during the preschool years. Research cannot fully assess the larger effects of care without understanding these changes and what influences the decisions mothers make about working and the kinds of alternative care their children will receive. This article addresses both the mother's decision to work (and thus not be the exclusive care provider) and the choice of different types of child care for preschool children, distinguished by ages of the child.! We first examine the determinants of labor force participation of married and unmarried women with preschool children. We assume (as does the data set we use) that if the mother supplies no labor to the market, she provides primary care for her children. We then characterize child care options for employed mothers (the only ones for whom our data source obtained child care choice), differentiating by age of the child. In explaining the types of child care chosen, we consider factors relating to the parents' need for care and the availability of informal and formal care.? Copyright © 1988 Population Association of America 205 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article-pdf/25/2/205/905946/205leibowitz.pdf by guest on 30 March 2022