According to the National Household Education Survey — Early Childhood Program Participation numbers, 22% of young children with both parents employed full-time had no regular non-parental child care arrangement in 2023, up from 14% in 2019. The Department of Education hasn’t released the 2023 data file yet, and while the 2019 data file has lots of information, it doesn’t have continuous income data or much information about parental schedules. I was curious how these parents differed from employed parents with child care.
"currently-married couples were actually less likely to be employed without childcare than unmarried parents — for married employed parents, 35% didn’t report a childcare arrangement, whereas it was 40% for unmarried parents." Maybe a silly question, but could this be related to SES or is that already being taken into account?
Quite possibly - the dataset isn't big enough to easily look at marital status controlled for income. Given that this question is supposed to include unpaid arrangements like grandma as well as center care, I also wondered if it could be that the child's non-resident parent is doing some child care during work hours that doesn't show up as a "child care arrangement." It seems really unlikely that 40% of employed single parents are just leaving their pre-school-age children to fend for themselves, whereas the 35% of married parents could be staggering employment hours to eliminate the need for other child care.
"currently-married couples were actually less likely to be employed without childcare than unmarried parents — for married employed parents, 35% didn’t report a childcare arrangement, whereas it was 40% for unmarried parents." Maybe a silly question, but could this be related to SES or is that already being taken into account?
Quite possibly - the dataset isn't big enough to easily look at marital status controlled for income. Given that this question is supposed to include unpaid arrangements like grandma as well as center care, I also wondered if it could be that the child's non-resident parent is doing some child care during work hours that doesn't show up as a "child care arrangement." It seems really unlikely that 40% of employed single parents are just leaving their pre-school-age children to fend for themselves, whereas the 35% of married parents could be staggering employment hours to eliminate the need for other child care.