CHILDCARE

Childcare and Childhood

Childcare and Childhood

Introduction

Contemporary issues in childhood demonstrate clearly that childcare provision in the UK has evolved alongside the expansion of mothers' employment, transforming the experiences of successive generations. This study reviews some mixed evidence on child outcomes of maternal employment and offers a detailed examination of the working mothers' use of childcare. In particular, it looks at the differential use of formal and informal childcare provision using the first survey of the Millennium Cohort Study, which is compared, as far as possible, with evidence from the earlier birth cohort studies in 1970 and 1958. The affordability and trustworthiness of formal childcare remains a constraint on its use and indirectly on labour supply for some mothers.

The growth of the female labour force in the last decades of the twentieth century in Britain has entailed the emergence of paid childcare as an activity visible to the policymaker and (at least partially) to the National Accounts and Audit Office. Not only does it almost entirely employ female workers, it permits many more women to participate in other sectors and contribute cash to family income. In conjunction with maternity leave and other employment provisions relating to family responsibilities, paid childcare can assist in increasing the size of the female labour force and also help sustain its long-term productivity. It conserves human capital by helping women maintain career continuity, and helping them and/or their employers avoid the cost of retraining when mothers only return to the labour market after a long break (Joshi and Davies, 1993). Affordable childcare has also become an important part of the income maintenance strategy in assisting low income families, particularly lone mothers, from welfare to work as part of the Child Poverty target.

Freeing maternal time for paid work is only one reason for investment, public or private, in the provision of non-maternal childcare. Another fundamental aspect is its impact on the current and future well being of children. It can contribute both to children's consumption and to investment in their future education and productivity. This distinction is closely related to the dual function of childrearing (and formal education) in custody and cultivation.

Making sure children are safe, healthy and learning is the responsibility of parents and society more generally. In practice, the care of children is provided from various sources: the family, the informal economy, the private market and public provision. Child rearing has a mixture of custodial and developmental functions, the balance of which varies by the age of the child, and many other factors including time and place.

Most people would agree with Ermisch (1989) and Abraham and Makie (2005) that there are limits in the extent to which childrearing tasks would normally be provided outside the family, however expert the professionals. Likewise few would expect parents to be the only agents involved in educating the next generation of citizens. The childcare 'industry' is at a shifting interface between the economy and the family.

Purchased formal childcare does more than provide a custodial service for employed ...