Anybody who has ever done research on how working mothers find and select child care will undoubtedly tell you that it’s complicated. Each mother brings a unique child, a particular set of individual and family circumstances, employment constraints, and assumptions about what child care means. Furthermore, mothers’ decisions regarding child care often takes place within a mixed market of formal and informal providers, including licensed child care centers and family day care homes as well as individual care givers.
At the Census, I analyze and conduct research related to child care issues using the Survey of Income and Program Participation. The data I work with daily has been discussed most recently in The New Times and Time and further highlights the complexity of child care.
In my own work, I examine the relationship between child care decisions and mothers’ work through the use of “spatial stories”. I borrow the term “spatial stories” from scholars in geography (see Hanson and Pratt 1995) as a way to illustrate the importance of physical and social space in mothers’ ability to manage complex time and space problems in their daily routines when linking together the geographies of home, child care, and work. I will post some of this research soon.
In the meantime, check out these recent reports and data releases:
Taking pressure off families: Child-care subsidies lessen mothers' work-hour problems
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/us/29child.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2008/08/19/midwestern_moms_most_likely_to/
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/childcare.html
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