The Impacts of Non-Parental Care on Child Development - August 1999

There has been a dramatic increase in the rate of employment for mothers with pre-school-aged children from 1967 to 1997, 17% to 65% respectively (Beach, Bertrand, & Cleveland, 1998). There has also been an increase in the percentage of children living in single parent homes up from 10% in 1971 to 15.7% in 1994 (Lefebvre & Merrigan, 1998). These changes have led to a significant shift in the demand for child care in Canada. In the 1994-1995 sample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), 33.2% of Canadian children under eleven and 39.9% of children age five or younger (Ross, Scott and Kelly, 1996) were receiving some form of regular non-parental care while their parents worked or studied.

Shortly after these demographic shifts were first recognized, almost three decades ago, social scientists and policy makers in North America began to seek an understanding of their implications for child development. Early research on non-parental care (1970s) focused principally upon disadvantaged children growing up in high-quality, university-based daycare centres. As a result, much of the research focused on daycare in regulated centres and this form of care is often equated with the term "child care" itself. However, non-parental care (NPC) can involve many different forms of care including care inside and outside of the child's home or care by relative or non-relative caregivers, who may or may not be licensed.

This paper builds on previous work by the Applied Research Branch (ARB) including a variety of working papers on the impacts on NPC and a commissioned paper by Gordon Cleveland and Douglas Hyatt, which examined the feasibility of measuring NPC using the NLSCY. This paper represents a more detailed look at the issue of NPC and sets out a framework through which the various forms of care can be measured using the NLSCY.

An annotated bibliography of current research was commissioned and is presented in the first chapter. The remainder of the paper builds on the research found in the bibliography. Section 3 discusses the process and content issues to be considered when measuring NPC on a large scale survey such as the NLSCY. Following the Issues chapter, a research framework was developed to guide the data, research, and policy strategy for the Applied Research Branch. The final chapter deals with specific recommendations and outstanding methodological issues to be considered when measuring NPC through both the NSLCY and a telephone-based care provider survey. This addresses the recommendations made by Norris, Brink, and Mosher (reviewed in section 2.6) in a technical paper discussing the importance of, and most feasible way, of collecting data directly from the child's care provider. These instruments were implemented in the Understanding the Early Years Community Component Initiative that was pilot tested in North York, Ontario, in the spring and summer of 1999.¹

• ¹For more information on the Understanding the Early Years Initiative and the North York project please see Connor, S. & Brink, S. Understanding the Early Years: Community Impacts on Child Development, Human Resources Development Canada, Applied Research Branch Working Paper W-99-6E, August 1999.