Patterns of Child Care Use for Preschoolers in Los Angeles County

Abstract

Proposition 10 added a 50-cent tax to cigarettes and other tobacco products. The revenue generated from this tax was earmarked for programs that promote early childhood development for children from birth to age 5. Twenty percent of the tax dollars were allocated to the California state Proposition 10 Commission. The remaining 80 percent is distributed to individual county Proposition 10 Commissions based on the proportion of children born in each county. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors established the Los Angeles County Children and Families First-Proposition 10 Commission (now known as First 5 LA) in December 1998. The Commission's goal is to use the funds generated by the implementation of Proposition 10 to invest in the health and development of young children in Los Angeles County. For more information on First 5 LA, go to www.first5.org. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit, independent, objective, and nonpartisan research institution, which helps to improve public policy through research and analysis. Additional information on RAND and RAND research can be found at www.rand.org. The First 5 LA-RAND Research Partnership was established to analyze the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS) data and disseminate research findings related to policy questions surrounding school readiness, child care choices, children's health, the contribution of neighborhood characteristics to young children's well-being, and children's health insurance coverage, access, and utilization. to facilitate access to L.A.FANS results and other data by developing and implementing a strategy for outreach to organizations, agencies, and community groups concerned with early childhood development in Los Angeles. to develop standardized measures of school readiness, child care choices, and children's health that can be used in other studies and evaluations. Under the Research Partnership, RAND Labor and Population, a unit of the RAND Corporation, and First 5 LA research staff collaborate on identifying key policy questions on which policymakers and the public need more information. Although First 5 LA also provides funding to RAND to conduct the analyses, RAND research staff carry out the analyses and are responsible for all of the findings and conclusions. Like all RAND publications, this report has been carefully reviewed for accuracy and objectivity as part of RAND's quality assurance program. 3 Contents Preface Table of Contents Figures Tables Summary CHAPTER ONE Introduction Public Policy Objective and Organization of This Report CHAPTER TWO Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS) Survey Design L.A.FANS Child Care Measures CHAPTER THREE Results Regular Use of Non-Parental Care Number of Arrangements Primary Type of Child Care Used Amount of Child Care Used Per Week Cost of Child Care Child-Adult Ratios CHAPTER FOUR

Child Care Choices of Hispanic Families: Why Aren't Families Using Center Care?

“…There is a large body of literature that examines the variation in use different forms of child care by family and child characteristics (Capizzano et al, 2006;Chyu et al, 2005;Crosnoe, 2007;Hirschberg et al, 2007;Hunts & Avery, 1998;Liang et al, 2000;Radey & Brewster, 2007;Singer et al, 1998). Some of these studies focus on use of center care or relative care, while others look at several different types of care.…”

“…Yet these studies tend to examine a relatively similar set of family and child characteristics, including the age and ethnicity of the child, the employment status, education level, and marital status of the mother, and family income. Some studies include other potentially relevant variables, such as the number of other children in the household (Hunts & Avery, 1998;Singer et al, 1998), the age of the mother at the child's birth (Chyu et al, 2005;Singer et al, 1998), the immigration status or nativity of the mother (Brandon, 2004;Chyu et al, 2005;Crosnoe, 2007), and the primary language spoken in the household (Hirshberg et al, 2005;Liang et al, 2000). This section describes the findings of the literature on the family and child characteristics that are relevant to this study.…”

“…One of the most critical family characteristics in determining the type of child care a family uses is the employment status of the mother. Mothers who are employed (part-time and full-time) are consistently shown to be more likely to use all types of formal care (Chyu et al, 2005;Crosnoe, 2007;Hirschberg et al, 2007;Hunts & Avery, 1998;Radey & Brewster, 2007;Singer et al, 1998). This makes sense, because when mothers are working they are less available to provide care for children themselves.…”

“…Hispanics are a particularly large segment of the population in California, and Hispanics account for 59% of the population of children ages 0 to 5 in Los Angeles County (Los Angeles County Chief Administrative Office, 2002; U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Yet despite being such a large portion of the child population, Hispanic children in the U.S., California and Los Angeles County lag behind other children in terms of enrollment in preschools and child care centers (Chernoff et al, 2007;Chyu et al, 2005;Karoly et al, 2006;NCES, 2006). Efforts to increase enrollment in child care centers 1 are therefore likely to place a large emphasis on programs that target Hispanic children.…”

Physical well-being of four-year-old learners and their readiness for Grade R.

“…This study considers family members and the ECD centre in Mandlankala area as part of the microsystem. Chyu, Pebley, and Lara-Cinisomo (2005) state that the company of grandparents and other members of extended family living with a nuclear family may bear desired results in terms of childcare. Allen and Kelly (2015) state that early child development is mainly reliant on relationships with considerate adults who are willing to train the child.…”