4. Child care and employment
- 4.1 Child care in the infant cohort
- 4.2 Child care, preschool and school in the 4–5 year-old cohort
- 4.3 Summary
The decisions of families with young children about participation in paid employment are strongly tied to decisions about who will care for the children. This section exploits the detailed data in LSAC about the use of child care by the study child to provide an overview of patterns of use of child care.
Parents' decisions about the use of non-parental care are influenced by a range of factors, including attitudes about the appropriateness of different types of care, the perceived needs of the child, and the availability and cost of care. Some parents have a preference for centre-based care arrangements as a way of socialising the child, while others prefer home-based care that more closely resembles the care they themselves would provide (Hand 2005). Parents may also have a choice between informal arrangements such as direct family members (grandparents, older siblings or a non-resident parent) and formal arrangements such as a day care centre or family day care (Greenblat & Ochiltree 1993).
There is considerable variation in the types of child care used by Australian families. Furthermore, the options and decisions around combining paid employment and how children are looked after are quite different for infants and 4–5 year olds. The separate early childhood education system (preschool) for children just under school age provides different options (and complexities) for families to manage. Regardless of the age of the child, employed parents may need to make use of multiple forms of care to facilitate their participation in the labour market. This is especially likely for employed parents when children attend preschool for part of the week (Baxter 2004).
Child care for young children ranges from formal, government-regulated centre and home-based child care settings to various informal, unregulated arrangements that include, for example, care by grandparents, friends or nannies. During the preschool years, prior-to-school programs that can have a strong focus on early education augment child care settings.30 The analysis in this section is presented separately for the infant and 4–5 year-old cohorts.
LSAC data on the use of child care was analysed by Harrison and Ungerer (2005) and this section extends this work by examining how the use of non-parental care varies according to patterns of parental employment.
The remainder of this section is structured as follows. Section 4.1 focuses on patterns of use of child care by the infant cohort and Section 4.2 focuses on the 4–5 year-old cohort. For each cohort, child care use is described according to patterns of parental employment. Satisfaction with child care use is also analysed. A more detailed description of the patterns of child care use for families in which at least one parent is employed is also provided.
Single parents in paid employment generally face greater constraints in their options as to whether or not to use non-parental care and the types of arrangements they need to provide care for their children (see Hughes & Gray 2005 for a discussion of this issue). The use of child care of single and couple-parent families is compared.
For children in couple-parent families, parental employment patterns are classified according to whether neither parent is employed, one parent is employed or both parents are employed. Where one parent was not employed, this classification does not specify whether it was the mother or the father who was not employed, although the not-employed parent is usually the mother. Further, where job characteristics are related to child care use, the characteristics of the job held by the primary carer are used. In most cases, the primary carer was the mother (see Section 2.2).
4.1 Child care in the infant cohort
Data and definitions
Information on the use of child care for the infant cohort were collected from the primary carer.31 Parents were asked 'over the past one month, has [the study child] been looked after at regular times during the week by anyone other than you (or partner)? (include care by non-resident parents but not casual or occasional babysitting)'. Subsequent questions then probed for details of any regular child care arrangements.
All types of care were captured by the questionnaire, but for much of the following analysis, these detailed care types were collapsed into four broad groups as shown in Box 4.1.
| Parental care only | No regular child care arrangement. |
| Formal care only | Day care centre, family day care, occasional care. |
| Informal care only | Grandparent, other relative, nanny, child's parent living elsewhere, other person (includes friend or neighbour), gym leisure or community centre, mobile care unit. |
| Both formal and informal care | A combination of formal and informal care. |
Child care in all infant families
Just over one-third of infants had at least one regular child care arrangement. There were substantial differences in the use of child care according to family type and employment status (see Table 4.1). A higher proportion of employed single parents used some form of child care (80.9 per cent) than not-employed single parents (24.7 per cent). A high proportion of couple-parent families in which both parents were employed used some form of child care (65.4 per cent), although interestingly, around one-third of these dual-employed families used parental care only. In couple-parent families where only one parent was employed (usually the father), only 16.7 per cent had regular care arrangements for the infant. This is similar to the rate for couple-parent families in which neither parent was employed (13.3 per cent).
Employed single-parent families had higher rates of use of child care than couple-parent families in which both parents were employed (see Table 4.1). This is not surprising, given that couple parents may be more easily able to coordinate their use of time and work arrangements so that non-parental care is not required.
Families with infants were more likely to use informal care only for the infant (20.5 per cent) than formal care only (10.8 per cent) (see Table 4.1). Employed single parents were more likely than dual-employed parents to use a mix of formal and informal care.
| Child care | Single |
Couple |
Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not employed |
Employed | Neither employed |
One employed |
Both employed | ||
| Parental care only | 75.3 | 19.1 | 86.7 | 83.3 | 34.6 | 64.8 |
| Formal care only | 6.2 | 22.7 | 4.6 | 4.4 | 21.5 | 10.8 |
| Informal care only | 16.5 | 37.7 | 8.7 | 11.4 | 35.6 | 20.5 |
| Both formal and informal | 2.0 | 20.5 | 0.0 | 0.9 | 8.4 | 3.9 |
| (n=385) | (n=91) | (n=238) | (n=2,555) | (n=1,834) | (n=5,103) | |
The reason for use of child care was clearly related to parental employment (see Table 4.2), with the majority of employed single parents and dual-employed couples citing parental work or study commitments as the main reason for using child care (92.9 per cent and 91.2 per cent, respectively).32 This is true regardless of whether formal or informal care was the main type of care used.33
| Reason for care | Single |
Couple |
Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not employed |
Employed | Neither employed |
One employed |
Both employed | ||
| Parent's work or study commitments |
34.7 | 92.9 | 27.7 | 28.9 | 91.2 | 72.0 |
| Parent's sport, shopping or social commitments |
20.7 | 2.4 | 31.1 | 24.6 | 2.7 | 9.5 |
| To give parent a break or time alone |
21.8 | 1.8 | 28.7 | 25.4 | 2.5 | 9.5 |
| Child-related reasons(a) | 14.4 | 1.3 | 12.5 | 11.2 | 2.8 | 5.6 |
| Other reasons(b) | 8.5 | 1.6 | 0.0 | 9.9 | 0.9 | 3.5 |
| (n=96) | (n=75) | (n=29) | (n=428) | (n=1,191) | (n=1,819) | |
Satisfaction with child care in the infant cohort
The vast majority (82.2 per cent) of parents of the infant cohort were very satisfied with their main child care arrangement (see Table 4.3). Families who used grandparents to care for their children were the most satisfied with this care arrangement (also see Gray, Misson & Hayes 2005). While remaining high, satisfaction with child care was lowest for those using child care centres.
| Child care | Very satisfied |
Satisfied | Neither satisfied or dissatisfied |
Dissatisfied/ very dissatisfied |
Number of observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Formal care | |||||
| Child care centre | 67.7 | 25.2 | 3.2 | 3.9 | 514 |
| Family day care | 79.5 | 15.7 | 3.0 | 1.8 | 182 |
| Informal care | |||||
| Gym, leisure or community centre, mobile care unit |
78.2 | 16.7 | 5.2 | 0.0 | 51 |
| Grandparent | 92.4 | 7.1 | 0.6 | 0.0 | 792 |
| Other relative | 84.0 | 13.0 | 1.7 | 1.3 | 82 |
| Nanny | 84.2 | 14.4 | 1.4 | 0.0 | 75 |
| Other person (includes friend or neighbour) |
83.8 | 13.0 | 3.2 | 0.0 | 97 |
| Total | 82.2 | 14.6 | 1.9 | 1.4 | 1,832 |
Child care in working families, infant cohort
This section examines the use of child care by employed single-parent families, and couple-parent families where both parents were employed (described as 'working families' in this section).
A significant proportion of working families were able to manage paid work responsibilities without using non-parental care (19.1 per cent of employed single parents and 34.6 per cent of employed couple-parent families, Table 4.1). An important question is what factors are related to the probability of using non-parental care for their infant. For working families that do use care, the question is what factors are associated with using formal care compared to informal care.
In considering these associations, it should be kept in mind that other factors, not considered here because of a lack of information in LSAC, are likely to be important. These include affordability or availability of different care options, and views on what is appropriate care for children at different ages.
The following tables show the child care use of working families according to family characteristics (Table 4.4) and the primary carer's job characteristics (Table 4.5). To help in the analysis of these relationships, the data was further explored using multivariate techniques, which drew out the associations between these characteristics and the care arrangements. The results of the multivariate analyses formed the basis of the following discussion, with only those relationships found to be statistically significant discussed.34
Factors associated with using parental care only
Turning first to the use of parental care only, there were a number of relationships evident in the data (see Table 4.4). First, younger children were most likely to be in parental care only (54.3 per cent of those aged 3 to 5 months, compared to 21.8 per cent of those aged 12 months or more). Children from larger families were also more likely to be in parental care only (28.9 per cent of one-child families compared to 47.2 per cent of infants in families of three or more children). Children in employed single-parent families were significantly less likely to be in parental care only (19.1 per cent) compared to children from couple working families (34.6 per cent). A higher total parental income was positively related to the use of non-parental child care (the percentage using parental care only was 43.7 per cent for families with gross income of less than $1,000 per week, 32.4 per cent where the income was between $1,000 and $1,499 and 26.5 per cent where the income was $1,500 or more), reflecting the fact that higher-income parents were more likely to be working longer hours and/or in higher paying jobs. When the primary carer was more highly educated, there was also a greater use of non-parental child care (for example, 42.9 per cent of those with incomplete secondary compared to 28.7 per cent of those with bachelor degree or higher used parental care only).
| Characteristic | Parental care only |
Formal care only |
Informal care only |
Formal and informal |
Number of observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age of study child | |||||
| 3–5 months | 54.3 | 12.0 | 29.2 | 4.5 | 140 |
| 6–8 months | 40.8 | 17.1 | 36.8 | 5.3 | 611 |
| 9–11 months | 31.2 | 23.5 | 35.3 | 10.0 | 790 |
| 12 months or more | 21.8 | 27.4 | 37.0 | 13.7 | 384 |
| Number of children | |||||
| 1 | 28.9 | 21.4 | 39.7 | 10.0 | 858 |
| 2 | 32.5 | 24.3 | 33.8 | 9.4 | 699 |
| 3 or more | 47.2 | 16.6 | 30.4 | 5.8 | 368 |
| Family type | |||||
| Couple | 34.6 | 21.5 | 35.6 | 8.4 | 1,834 |
| Single parent | 19.1 | 22.7 | 37.7 | 20.5 | 91 |
| Country of birth(a) | |||||
| Australia | 33.8 | 21.8 | 34.7 | 9.7 | 1,580 |
| Not Australia | 33.7 | 20.4 | 40.0 | 5.9 | 345 |
| Highest education(a) | |||||
| Incomplete secondary | 42.9 | 18.1 | 33.0 | 6.0 | 167 |
| Complete secondary only | 41.3 | 15.4 | 32.2 | 11.1 | 253 |
| Certificate/diploma | 33.8 | 21.2 | 36.5 | 8.5 | 725 |
| Bachelor degree or higher | 28.7 | 24.8 | 36.7 | 9.8 | 780 |
| Total parental gross weekly income | |||||
| <$1,000 | 43.7 | 13.2 | 34.9 | 8.1 | 547 |
| $1,000–1,499 | 32.4 | 23.9 | 34.8 | 8.9 | 581 |
| $1,500 or more | 26.5 | 26.1 | 37.4 | 10.0 | 710 |
| Total | 33.8 | 21.6 | 35.7 | 9.0 | 1,925 |
Specific job characteristics of the primary carer also had an association with using parental care only (see Table 4.5). Parents working less than 16 hours per week were more likely to use parental care only for the study child (49.9 per cent), as were self-employed parents (56.4 per cent). Casual employees were also more likely to use parental care only than permanent/ongoing employees (37.5 per cent compared to 19.8 per cent). Parents who worked evenings/nights and parents who worked weekends were more likely to use parental care only (40.8 per cent and 41.2 per cent, respectively) compared to those who did not. It could be that these parents worked some or all of their time in these non-standard times to facilitate the caring of children around work. Unfortunately, LSAC does not contain information on whether parents always worked from home, and so this relationship could not be explored further using these data.
| Characteristic(a) | Parental care only |
Formal care only |
Informal care only |
Formal and informal |
Number of observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hours worked | |||||
| 1–15 | 49.9 | 11.7 | 34.1 | 4.4 | 860 |
| 16–34 | 20.2 | 28.8 | 36.7 | 14.3 | 702 |
| 35 or more | 22.0 | 30.5 | 38.1 | 9.4 | 356 |
| Job type | |||||
| Self-employed | 56.4 | 8.8 | 29.7 | 5.1 | 515 |
| Permanent/ongoing employee | 19.8 | 31.0 | 37.4 | 11.7 | 991 |
| Casual employee | 37.5 | 15.6 | 39.5 | 7.5 | 381 |
| Evening/night work | |||||
| Does not work evenings/nights | 26.2 | 26.0 | 37.7 | 10.2 | 914 |
| Works evenings/nights | 40.8 | 17.5 | 33.9 | 7.9 | 1,011 |
| Weekend work | |||||
| Does not work weekends | 24.7 | 26.7 | 38.9 | 9.7 | 867 |
| Works weekends | 41.2 | 17.4 | 33.1 | 8.3 | 1,058 |
| Flexible start/finish times | |||||
| Flexible working hours | 39.1 | 19.1 | 33.7 | 8.2 | 855 |
| Can change hours with approval | 22.2 | 31.0 | 35.3 | 11.5 | 407 |
| Cannot change start/finish | 28.7 | 24.9 | 38.2 | 8.3 | 253 |
| Non-primary carer hours (couples only) | |||||
| 1–34 | 44.5 | 13.5 | 36.6 | 5.4 | 128 |
| 35–44 | 28.6 | 24.7 | 38.5 | 8.1 | 656 |
| 45–54 | 31.3 | 22.6 | 37.0 | 9.1 | 600 |
| 55 or more | 44.5 | 17.7 | 29.4 | 8.5 | 438 |
| Total | 33.8 | 21.6 | 35.7 | 9.0 | 1,925 |
Restricting the analysis to couple-parent families in which both parents are employed allows an analysis of the effect of hours worked by the non-primary carer (usually the father) on the rates of use of child care and to the types of care used. While Table 4.5 shows parental care only was higher when the non-primary carer in dual-employed families worked part-time hours or very long full-time hours (55 hours or more), these results were not significant once other characteristics were taken into account.
Formal versus informal care
For those working families that used child care, it was also possible to identify differences in the use of formal care versus informal care. Again, this analysis refers to the previous two tables, but draws on the results of the multivariate analysis to identify the key findings, with the relationships noted here being the only ones found to be significant.35 As noted earlier, this analysis was not able to consider those factors that could not be identified through these data, such as affordability, availability or family preferences for different types of care.
First, from Table 4.4, the age of the study child had the greatest effect, with older infants more likely to be in formal care (12.0 per cent of those aged 3 to 5 months were in formal care only and 29.2 per cent informal care only, compared to 27.4 per cent of those aged 12 months or more in formal care only and 37.0 per cent in informal care only). Two-child families were somewhat more likely to be in formal care than informal care than one-child families (21.4 per cent of infants in one-child families were in formal care only and 39.7 per cent in informal care only, while 24.3 per cent of infants in two-child families were in formal care only and 33.8 per cent in informal care only). From Table 4.5, when the primary carer was self-employed the child was more likely to be in informal care only (29.7 per cent) than in formal care only (8.8 per cent), relative to those with a primary carer who was a permanent/ongoing employee (31.0 per cent formal care only, 37.4 per cent informal care only). This was also the case if the primary carer worked less than 16 hours per week (34.1 per cent were in informal care only and 11.7 per cent in formal care only), relative to working 35 hours or more (38.1 per cent informal care only, 30.5 per cent formal care only). The hours the non-primary carer worked did not significantly differentiate between those who used formal care and those who used informal care, and neither did parental income.
The use of parental care only in more detail
A possible explanation as to how couple working families are able to use parental care only is that the parents share the care of children. In other words, parents schedule their hours so that one parent is available to care for the child while the other is working. Although LSAC does not provide detailed information on work schedules, it can provide some insight into this through a question which asks the primary carer whether there are any regular times during the week when their partner takes care of the child while they are not there (for example, to go to work or do the shopping). The primary carer is then asked for how many hours the child is looked after by the partner only.
Table 4.6 shows that the partner spent some time caring for the child in 52.4 per cent of couple working families who used no formal or informal care. Looking from the other perspective, the primary carer was the sole carer of the child in 47.6 per cent of these dual-employed, parental-care-only families (see Table 4.6). In these families, it seems that the primary carer was working while also being responsible for children.
Partners of self-employed primary carers were the least likely to provide care, and when they did, they provided care for fewer hours than the mean working hours of self-employed primary carers. That is, it appears that self-employed primary carers were the most likely to be working while also caring for children. For permanent/ongoing and casual employees, when their partners did provide care, they did so for an amount of hours that was similar to the mean hours worked by permanent/ongoing or casual employees, suggesting a dovetailing of hours in these families.
| Self-employed | Permanent/ ongoing employee |
Casual employee |
Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Partner cares for the child (%) | 42.1 | 62.0 | 61.8 | 52.4 |
| Weekly number of hours of care by partner (hrs) |
6.9 | 18.1 | 10.5 | 11.8 |
Mean weekly hours worked by primary carer | ||||
| Partner does not care for child | 12.7 | 19.6 | 8.7 | 13.6 |
| Partner does care for child | 13.3 | 21.5 | 11.0 | 15.6 |
| Total | 13.0 | 20.8 | 10.1 | 14.7 |
| (n=304) | (n=191) | (n=143) | (n=638) | |
Child care use in more detail
Continuing to focus on working families, Table 4.7 shows a more detailed breakdown of the types of care used, by family type and the hours worked by the primary carer. The predominant non-parental care providers for infants were grandparents (33.7 per cent), child care centres (21.9 per cent) and family day care arrangements (8.2 per cent).
Table 4.7 shows all types of care used, not just the main type of care, so the percentages may add to more than 100. This was particularly true for single employed parents, who were more likely to have multiple care arrangements. Single working parents had a higher rate of usage of almost all care types compared to couple working families.
In working families with an infant using non-parental child care, grandparents were the single most common type of non-parental care used. This was true for both single-parent and couple-parent families and for all hours categories worked by the primary carer (see Table 4.7). Grandparent care was most common in families where the primary carer worked 16 to 34 hours (40.1 per cent). As working hours increased, use of formal child care arrangements increased substantially, with child care centres the most common providers of formal child care.
| Child care | Family type |
Hours worked by primary carer |
Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Couple | Single | 1–15 | 16–34 | 35 or more | ||
| Parental care only | 34.6 | 19.1 | 49.9 | 20.2 | 22.0 | 33.6 |
| Formal care | ||||||
| Child care centre | 21.3 | 32.6 | 10.3 | 31.4 | 30.6 | 21.9 |
| Family day care | 8.0 | 12.3 | 4.0 | 12.1 | 10.0 | 8.2 |
| Occasional care | 1.1 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 1.1 |
| Informal care | ||||||
| Gym, leisure or community centre | 1.4 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 1.3 | 0.0 | 1.4 |
| Grandparent | 33.4 | 40.0 | 29.1 | 40.1 | 32.5 | 33.7 |
| Other relative | 4.9 | 7.2 | 3.9 | 6.7 | 4.5 | 5.1 |
| Nanny | 3.8 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 3.9 | 7.4 | 3.7 |
| Child's parent living elsewhere | 0.0 | 13.7 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 0.7 |
| Other person (includes friend or neighbour) |
5.0 | 11.3 | 5.3 | 4.9 | 6.3 | 5.3 |
| (n=1,834) | (n=91) | (n=860) | (n=702) | (n=356) | (n=1,925) | |
Reasons for not using child care, infant cohort
This section focuses on the reasons for not using child care (64.8 per cent of families). Table 4.8 examines the reasons families gave for not using child care, by family type. The categories used were 'no need', 'child-related' and 'affordability, availability or quality barriers'. The large majority of families said they were not using child care because they had no need for it (87.3 per cent). This was true regardless of family type and parental employment.
Only a small proportion of families said that they were not using child care because they had problems with affordability, availability or quality (5.5 per cent). Single parents were more likely than couple parents to say that they were not using child care because of problems with affordability, availability or quality of child care. However, it should be recognised that only a minority of single parents gave this reason (8.8 per cent).
Some caution needs to be exercised in drawing conclusions from these results about relationships between child care 'barriers' and parental employment, as the Wave 1 child care questions were not designed in a way to obtain good measures of unmet demand for child care, or to obtain information on the extent to which employment is constrained by child care options.36
| Reasons(a) | Single(b) | Couple, neither employed |
Couple, one employed |
Couple, both employed |
Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No need | 81.7 | 83.9 | 89.5 | 84.1 | 87.3 |
| Child-related | 9.6 | 11.9 | 5.9 | 8.9 | 7.3 |
| Affordability, availability or quality barriers | 8.8 | 4.3 | 4.7 | 7.0 | 5.5 |
| (n=302) | (n=209) | (n=2,120) | (n=639) | (n=3,272) |
4.2 Child care, preschool and school in the 4–5 year-old cohort
Data and definitions
Parents of children in the 4–5 year-old cohort were asked about child care and preschool/school attendance for the study child. This information was collected from the primary carer in a two-stage process. Parents were first asked whether the child attends school, kindergarten, preschool or a day care centre, and if so, more detail was obtained about the main one of these that the child attends. Parents were then asked for details of other forms of care, including informal care.
For much of the following analysis of child care for the 4–5 year-old cohort, the detailed care types have been collapsed into six broad groups, shown in Box 4.2.
The need to include preschool/school attendance means that the number of possible care/early education categories is larger than for infants. In much of the analysis preschool and school were combined to simplify the analysis, although some tables distinguish between school and preschool and between individual types of care. No children were identified as being in Year 1 at school but some were identified as being in pre-Year 1.37
| Parental care only | No regular child care arrangement. |
| School/preschool only | Attends pre-Year 1 in school or preschool, but no regular child care arrangements outside school or preschool. |
| School/preschool and other care | Attends pre-Year 1 school or preschool, and also has regular child care arrangements outside school or preschool. |
| Formal care only | No school/preschool. Day care centre, family day care, occasional care. |
| Informal care only | No school/preschool. Grandparent, other relative, nanny, child's parent living elsewhere, other person (includes friend or neighbour), gym leisure or community centre, mobile care unit. |
| Both formal and informal care | No school/preschool. A combination of formal and informal care. |
An important point to note is that child care use and early education involvement was only collected for the study child, not for any younger siblings. Given the strong relationship between the age of the youngest child in the family and maternal employment, it is likely that the child care arrangements for the youngest child will be important when attempting to understand employment decisions. Overall there were some differences in child care and early education use according to whether or not the study child had younger siblings (see Table 4.9). However, when the analysis focuses on working families (defined as single employed parents or dual-employed couple parents) there is little difference in child care and early education arrangements according to whether or not there were younger siblings. Therefore, 4–5 year-old cohort children with and without younger siblings were combined in the analyses presented in the remainder of this section.
| Child care | All families |
Working families | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Has younger siblings |
No younger siblings |
Has younger siblings |
No younger siblings | |
| Parental care only | 3.7 | 3.5 | 1.5 | 0.7 |
| School or preschool only | 39.6 | 47.2 | 27.5 | 30.1 |
| School/preschool and other | 33.3 | 27.9 | 44.8 | 42.1 |
| Formal care only | 16.2 | 15.5 | 16.5 | 17.6 |
| Informal care only | 1.2 | 0.8 | 1.1 | 0.7 |
| Both formal and informal | 5.9 | 5.2 | 8.7 | 8.8 |
| (n=2,647) | (n=2,336) | (n=1,581) | (n=1,092) | |
Child care and early education in the families of 4–5 year-old cohort
This section focuses on the child care and early educational arrangements of all children in the 4–5 year-old cohort. At 4 years and older, many children were eligible to participate in government-provided preschool or early education at school, although given differences across Australia in the age of school commencement, and in the availability of preschool places, considerable diversity was still expected in the types of care or early education these children were receiving.
Almost all children in the 4–5 year-old cohort had some form of care or early educational involvement (96.4 per cent, Table 4.10). Only in families where no parent was employed was the proportion of children in parental care only of any significance. In not-employed single-parent families it was 8.5 per cent and in couple-parent families in which neither parent was employed it was 16.0 per cent. In contrast to the infant care arrangements, children aged 4–5 years were more likely to be in formal care or educational arrangements rather than informal care.
More than half the 4–5 year olds were in preschool: 32.2 per cent in only preschool, and 25.2 per cent in preschool and some other care. A further 10.9 per cent were in school only and 5.6 per cent were in school as well as some other care (see Table 4.10). In families where the single parent was employed, or both couple parents were employed, the children were less likely than in other families to be in school or preschool with no other care arrangements. This was especially true for preschool only. Eleven per cent of employed single parents and 22.4 per cent of dual-employed couple-parent families had children in preschool only (compared to the average for all 4–5 year olds of 32.2 per cent). The percentages using school only were 6.3 per cent for single employed parents and 7.6 per cent for dual-employed couples.
The use of formal care only was very similar across all family types, although children from working families were significantly more likely to be in a mix of formal and informal care (not including school or preschool) than families without an employed parent.
| Child care | Single parent |
Couple |
Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not employed |
Employed | Neither employed |
One employed |
Both employed | ||
| Parental care only | 8.5 | 0.7 | 16.0 | 4.5 | 1.2 | 3.6 |
| School only | 12.8 | 6.3 | 20.2 | 14.3 | 7.6 | 10.9 |
| Preschool only | 32.0 | 11.0 | 37.1 | 48.2 | 22.4 | 32.2 |
| School and other | 4.6 | 13.7 | 1.9 | 2.4 | 7.6 | 5.6 |
| Preschool and other | 19.4 | 39.8 | 7.3 | 13.8 | 34.8 | 25.2 |
| Formal care only | 15.3 | 14.0 | 15.0 | 14.5 | 17.3 | 15.9 |
| Informal care only | 3.2 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Both formal and informal | 4.3 | 13.8 | 2.5 | 1.7 | 8.1 | 5.6 |
| (n=403) | (n=289) | (n=185) | (n=1,712) | (n=2,384) | (n=4,973) | |
Due to the two-stage process of asking questions about child care for this cohort, information was only collected on the reasons for the use of care where it was in addition to the main care provided by a school, kindergarten, preschool or day care centre. The main reasons for using care in addition to this main care differed markedly according to the employment status of parents (see Table 4.11). Single-parent employed families and dual-employed families were most likely to cite work as the main reason (79.7 per cent and 84.7 per cent respectively), while other families were more likely to cite child-related reasons, which included 'to establish relationships with grandparents or non-resident parents', 'to mix with other children of the same age', and 'it is good for child's social (or intellectual/language) development'.
| Reason | Single parent |
Couple |
Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not employed |
Employed | Neither employed |
One employed |
Both employed | ||
| Because of parents' work or study commitments |
23.1 | 79.7 | 22.5 | 24.3 | 84.7 | 68.5 |
| Because of parents' sport, shopping, social or community activities |
9.7 | 0.5 | 12.2 | 15.4 | 2.0 | 4.8 |
| To give parent a break or time alone |
13.4 | 0.5 | 14.1 | 16.5 | 1.8 | 5.2 |
| Child-related reasons(a) | 46.8 | 16.7 | 44.8 | 37.1 | 9.9 | 18.5 |
| Other reasons | 7.0 | 2.7 | 6.4 | 6.8 | 1.6 | 3.0 |
| (n=118) | (n=195) | (n=21) | (n=313) | (n=1,202) | (n=1,849) | |
Satisfaction with child care, 4–5 year-old cohort
Primary carers in the 4–5 year-old cohort were asked about their satisfaction with the main type of care arrangement they used (school, kindergarten, preschool or day care centre). As for the infant cohort, most parents (65.8 per cent) were highly satisfied with their care arrangement (see Table 4.12). The differences across different care types were very slight.
| Child care | Very satisfied | Satisfied | Neither satisfied or dissatisfied |
Dissatisfied/ very dissatisfied |
Number of observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-Year 1 in a school | 64.7 | 28.3 | 5.8 | 1.1 | 743 |
| Preschool program in a school | 66.2 | 26.9 | 5.0 | 2.0 | 1,464 |
| Preschool at non-school centre | 68.2 | 25.3 | 5.4 | 1.2 | 1,358 |
| Day care centre where child has a preschool program |
64.4 | 27.8 | 5.9 | 2.0 | 971 |
| Day care centre where child does not have a preschool program |
62.6 | 28.3 | 5.4 | 3.7 | 157 |
| Total | 65.8 | 27.1 | 5.5 | 1.7 | 4,761 |
Child care in working families, 4–5 year-old cohort
As with the infant cohort, the analysis now turns to families in the 4–5 year-old cohort in which all parents in the home are in paid employment. Unlike the infant cohort, the vast majority of children in non-working families spent time in some non-parental setting (often it was a preschool-only setting).
Table 4.13 and Table 4.14 show the relationships between care type and family and job characteristics. More detailed tables, separating school and preschool, are provided in Tables C4 and C5.
When considering the infant cohort, it was useful to analyse which children were in parental care only. For the 4–5 year-old cohort, this was not the case, since the vast majority of children (96.4 per cent) were in some form of care, including preschool and school. What is informative for this cohort is to analyse which children were only in school or preschool, as opposed to being in families where other or additional care was required. Multivariate analyses were used to identify key relationships between family or job characteristics, and use of school/preschool only versus other care arrangements. The discussion that follows highlights the relationships that were significant in this multivariate analysis.38
For the 4–5 year-old cohort, the combination of care possibilities was more complex than the infant cohort, and more closely linked to the age of the child due to institutional arrangements as well as parental preferences. Older children were, of course, more likely to be in school or preschool (see Table 4.13). Younger children were more likely to be in formal care, on its own or combined with informal care. This is probably, to some extent, related to the availability of school or preschool places for the younger of these children. Even among the younger of these children though, very few were not in some form of formal care or school or preschool.
As shown in Section 2, the 4–5 year-old cohort comprised children who were the youngest child in the family, and others who had younger siblings (about half of each). This difference was found to be important in explaining the work arrangements of parents of this cohort, but in this context it revealed no significant differences. There was a difference, however, according to the total number of children in the family, with children in larger families less likely to be in any care other than school or preschool on its own.
There was a significant difference between couple-parent and single-parent working families, with the latter more likely to be using care other than school or preschool (42.5 per cent of couple-parent families versus 53.5 per cent of single-parent families). Higher levels of education and the country of birth of the primary carer made little difference to the care arrangements.
| Characteristic | Parental care or informal only |
School/ preschool only |
School/ Preschool and other care |
Formal care only |
Formal and informal |
Number of observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age of study child | ||||||
| 4 years and: | ||||||
| 3–5 months | 3.8 | 20.7 | 32.4 | 29.3 | 13.8 | 256 |
| 6–8 months | 2.5 | 27.7 | 41.0 | 19.2 | 9.6 | 902 |
| 9–11 months | 2.0 | 29.5 | 45.1 | 15.5 | 7.9 | 1,027 |
| 5 years and older | 0.8 | 31.8 | 51.1 | 10.0 | 6.3 | 488 |
| Has younger siblings | ||||||
| No | 2.6 | 27.5 | 44.8 | 16.5 | 8.7 | 1,581 |
| yes | 1.4 | 30.1 | 42.1 | 17.6 | 8.8 | 1,092 |
| Number of children | ||||||
| 1 | 1.5 | 16.9 | 46.9 | 19.8 | 14.9 | 343 |
| 2 | 1.3 | 27.8 | 45.5 | 17.2 | 8.1 | 1,440 |
| 3 or more | 3.6 | 34.1 | 39.6 | 15.4 | 7.3 | 890 |
| Family type | ||||||
| Couple | 2.2 | 30.0 | 42.5 | 17.3 | 8.1 | 2,384 |
| Single parent | 1.5 | 17.3 | 53.5 | 14.0 | 13.8 | 289 |
| Country of birth(a) | ||||||
| Australia | 1.8 | 28.1 | 44.6 | 16.5 | 9.1 | 2,111 |
| Not Australia | 3.4 | 30.1 | 40.5 | 18.6 | 7.4 | 561 |
| Highest education(a) | ||||||
| Incomplete secondary | 3.8 | 29.4 | 44.5 | 14.0 | 8.4 | 390 |
| Complete secondary only | 2.5 | 30.3 | 43.8 | 15.8 | 7.6 | 366 |
| Certificate/diploma | 2.5 | 28.8 | 41.5 | 18.8 | 8.4 | 977 |
| Bachelor degree or higher | 0.5 | 27.0 | 46.0 | 16.8 | 9.7 | 940 |
| Parental income (gross per week) |
||||||
| < $1,000 | 3.2 | 30.6 | 43.7 | 15.3 | 7.2 | 700 |
| $1,000–1,499 | 1.8 | 27.5 | 43.9 | 18.0 | 8.8 | 708 |
| $1,500 or more | 1.6 | 27.3 | 43.5 | 17.7 | 10.0 | 1,121 |
| Total | 2.1 | 28.5 | 43.7 | 16.9 | 8.7 | 2,673 |
| Characteristic(a) | Parental or informal care only |
School/ Preschool only |
School/ preschool and other |
Formal care only |
Formal and informal |
Number of observations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hours worked | ||||||
| 1–15 | 1.3 | 44.2 | 35.4 | 13.9 | 5.2 | 885 |
| 16–34 | 2.3 | 22.2 | 49.0 | 17.2 | 9.3 | 1,070 |
| 35 or more | 2.9 | 18.2 | 46.4 | 20.3 | 12.3 | 710 |
| Job type | ||||||
| Self-employed | 2.6 | 47.6 | 29.6 | 15.0 | 5.2 | 673 |
| Permanent/ongoing employee | 1.4 | 18.0 | 50.7 | 18.8 | 11.1 | 1,477 |
| Casual employee | 3.4 | 33.1 | 42.4 | 14.5 | 6.7 | 518 |
| Evening/night work | ||||||
| Does not work evenings/nights | 1.3 | 28.0 | 43.3 | 17.9 | 9.4 | 1,289 |
| Works evenings/nights | 2.9 | 29.0 | 44.1 | 16.0 | 8.1 | 1,384 |
| Weekend work | ||||||
| Does not work weekends | 1.9 | 27.0 | 42.5 | 18.5 | 10.2 | 1,225 |
| Works weekends | 2.3 | 29.9 | 44.8 | 15.6 | 7.4 | 1,448 |
| Flexibility of start/finish times | ||||||
| Flexible working hours | 2.2 | 33.6 | 40.4 | 16.3 | 7.5 | 1,211 |
| Can change hours with approval | 1.0 | 18.6 | 51.4 | 18.4 | 10.7 | 559 |
| Cannot change start/finish | 2.0 | 23.7 | 49.2 | 15.2 | 9.9 | 377 |
| Non-primary carer hours (couples only) | ||||||
| 1–34 | 2.4 | 36.2 | 37.7 | 18.9 | 4.9 | 155 |
| 35–44 | 2.2 | 24.5 | 46.5 | 17.8 | 9.0 | 915 |
| 45–54 | 2.4 | 29.0 | 41.5 | 18.4 | 8.7 | 673 |
| 55 or more | 2.1 | 37.0 | 38.7 | 15.5 | 6.8 | 628 |
| Total | 2.1 | 28.5 | 43.7 | 16.9 | 8.7 | 2,673 |
Not surprisingly, primary carers working shorter hours were more likely to have the study child in school or preschool only (44.2 per cent of families where the primary carer worked 1 to 15 hours, versus 18.2 per cent of families where the primary carer worked 35 or more hours per week, Table 4.14). Similarly, primary carers who were self-employed were much more likely to have their child in school or preschool only (47.6 per cent), with permanent/ongoing employees considerably less likely (18.0 per cent) and casual employees somewhere in between (33.1 per cent). Parents who worked weekends were more likely to be using school/preschool only for the study child. Whether or not parents chose these care arrangements to suit their work, or whether they chose their work to suit these care arrangements cannot be discerned from these data.
Working flexible hours or working evenings/nights did not have strong associations with using care other than school/preschool and neither did parental income. The relationship with hours worked by the non-primary carer was only significant in that families in which the partner worked part-time hours were more likely to use only school/preschool.
Specific care or early education types
Table 4.15 shows how the more detailed classification of type of care varied by family type and working hours of the primary carer for working families. The percentages in each column add up to considerably more than 100 per cent because of the significantly higher incidence of multiple care in the 4–5 year-old cohort (compared to the infant cohort, where multiple care arrangements was the exception rather than the norm). The table reveals that besides preschool or school care types, single employed parents had a similar or higher prevalence of using each type of care than couple employed families, except for the use of nannies. In particular, single employed parents were more likely than couple employed parents to be using informal care arrangements (50.0 per cent in comparison to 36.6 per cent), and in 16.7 per cent of single-parent employed families, the non-resident parent cared for the child for some time during the week.
There was considerable variation in the use of different care or educational arrangements as the number of hours worked by the primary carer in working families increased. For the broad categories of day care, other types of formal care and informal care, the proportion of working families accessing care was higher when the primary carer worked longer hours. For the broad category of preschool or school, the proportion of study children attending these educational arrangements decreased as the primary carer's hours increased (see Table 4.15). These trends, however, hide some interesting variation within these broad categories. Primary carers with the study child in pre-Year 1 were more likely to be working full-time hours. In contrast, the use of a preschool program in a school or a separate centre decreased in working families as the hours of the primary carer increased; although where the preschool program was part of a day care centre, the lower usage only occurred with primary carers working full-time hours.
These results perhaps indicate that the limited hours of a preschool program may present logistical problems for some families where the primary carer works longer (full-time) hours. This is supported by the fact that day care centres without a preschool program were the most popular among full-time working primary carers. Of course, decisions about attendance at school and at preschool are quite different ones, with decisions about a child's school attendance much more likely to be made on the basis of a child's age and readiness for school than on the basis of parental employment. On the other hand, decisions about preschool attendance are more likely to be made in consideration of hours of work and other care options.
As the primary carer works longer hours, the longer non-parental care needs of children are also reflected in the increased use of other forms of formal care and most forms of informal care.
| Child care | Family type |
Hours worked by primary carer |
Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single | Couple | 1–15 | 16–34 | 35 or more | ||
| Preschool/school | 70.8 | 72.4 | 79.6 | 71.2 | 64.6 | 72.2 |
| Pre-Year 1 in a school | 20.3 | 15.5 | 13.1 | 15.1 | 21.1 | 16.1 |
| Preschool program in a school | 25.7 | 27.3 | 32.2 | 26.0 | 22.3 | 27.1 |
| Preschool at non-school centre | 26.6 | 30.9 | 34.8 | 31.4 | 23.7 | 30.4 |
| Day care | 42.7 | 37.6 | 27.8 | 42.5 | 45.0 | 38.3 |
| Day care centre where child has a preschool program |
32.6 | 29.5 | 22.4 | 31.7 | 16.1 | 29.9 |
| Day care centre where child does not have a preschool program |
6.5 | 6.4 | 3.5 | 8.7 | 27.1 | 6.4 |
| Other formal care | 18.8 | 11.4 | 7.5 | 13.3 | 16.6 | 12.2 |
| Family day care | 9.9 | 5.5 | 4.0 | 7.1 | 6.8 | 6.0 |
| Before/after school care | 7.0 | 4.6 | 1.6 | 4.6 | 9.5 | 4.9 |
| Informal care | 50.0 | 36.6 | 29.7 | 41.0 | 44.5 | 38.2 |
| Grandparent | 30.9 | 26.3 | 20.7 | 28.7 | 32.0 | 26.9 |
| Other relative | 8.6 | 3.1 | 3.0 | 4.1 | 4.3 | 3.8 |
| Child's parents living elsewhere | 16.7 | 0.3 | 2.3 | 1.5 | 3.0 | 2.2 |
| Nanny | 1.4 | 3.2 | 1.9 | 3.1 | 4.3 | 3.0 |
| Other person (includes friend or neighbour) | 6.5 | 6.9 | 5.2 | 8.5 | 6.4 | 6.9 |
| Parental care only | 0.7 | 1.2 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| (n=289) | (n=2,384) | (n=885) | (n=1,070) | (n=710) | (n=2,673) | |
4.3 Summary
LSAC provides detailed information on the use of child care (and early education). This information, combined with the comprehensive employment data, allows a detailed analysis of how the patterns of child care use are related to parental employment.
Key findings include:
- Families with an infant in which the parents were both in paid employment (or for single-parent families, the resident parent was employed) had higher rates of use of non-parental care than in families with a parent not in paid employment.
- In couple-parent families in which both parents were employed, the use of some form of non-parental care was much higher (65.4 per cent). For couple-parent families in which neither parent was employed or in which only one parent is employed, 13.3 and 16.7 per cent respectively used some form of non-parental care.
- Of those employed single parents with an infant, 80.9 per cent used some form of non-parental care compared to 24.7 per cent of not-employed single parents using non-parental care.
- For the infant cohort, rates of use of non-parental care were higher for single parents than couple-parent families irrespective of parents' employment.
- A substantial number of single-parent and couple-parent families were able to combine paid employment without the use of any form of non-parental care. For example, 19.1 per cent of employed single mothers did not use any form of non-parental care and 34.6 per cent of couple-parent families in which both parents were employed did not use any form of regular non-parental care. An important factor in allowing families to balance work and family commitments while using parental care only was one parent (usually the mother) working short part-time hours.
- For the 4–5 year-old cohort, almost all of the children in this cohort were in some non-parental care or early education arrangement. At this age, many children have such arrangements for reasons other than parental employment.
- Considerable differences were observed in the care arrangements of employed couple-parent families compared to employed single families. Single parents were less likely to rely only on parental care, and more likely to make use of formal care for infants. For both cohorts, single parents were more likely to have multiple care arrangements.
This last point highlights a key issue emerging from this section, which is the greater use of child care arrangements by single parents compared to couple parents. This was found to be the case for employed single parents (compared to dual-employed couple parents), as well as for single parents who were not working (compared to couple parents where one or both parents were not working). These findings highlight the additional support that single parents need in the absence of a partner, as well as the importance of integrated child care arrangements in facilitating single parents to more readily access paid employment.