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Parents' Choice of Day Care Services

In this article, findings are summarized from a multivariate analysis of types and amount of child care used by a national sample of parents with children under 14. Findings and policy implications are presented in four areas: a comparison of type versus hours used as alternative indicators of child care need, an analysis of the importance of location versus caregiver relatedness among users of home arrangements, the relationship between household structure and use of care, and the importance of household income as related to cost of child care. Based on the results of the study, it is concluded that the traditional link between employment status and use of formal group care is misleading, since being employed is critical to the amoung of care used, but not to the type chosen. It is emphasized that the complexities observed among the several household characteristics and the use of care strongly suggest that parents are in the best position to judge the amount or type of child care arrangements needed by their families. Based on this conclusion, public policy that rationalizes involvement in day care on the basis of support for family child rearing and economic functioning should permit maximum latitude to the range of choices available to parents.