Day care: Promoting collaboration between research and policymaking

JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 5, 91-113 (1984)

Day Care: Promoting Collaboration Between Research and Policymaking*

DEBORAH PHILLIPS University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana

An agenda for day care research that is tailored to current policy concerns is presented. Familiar developmental issues related to the quality of day care are recast within a policy perspective. Largely unexamined issues pertaining to the costs and supply of day care, the preventative role of day care services, economic and employment-related effects, links between day care and other settings that comprise children’s environments, and alternative approaches to day care such as employer- sponsored care, are also identified. It is argued that these issues extend current conceptualizations of interdisciplinary and ecological research. By way of introduction, an overview of recent sociodemographic trends and changes in federal day care policy is provided. A discussion of emerging policy issues that could profit from input by child development research then serves as background to detailed suggestions for research that can advance the dual goals of informing day care policymakers and contributing to developmental theory.

Policy issues affecting children, youth, and families have recently recaptured the attention of the child development community. Even a cursory glance at the newly established structures within the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD); l the conference proceedings and publications through which developmental psychologists communicate (Zigler, 1980), and the proliferation of training programs in child development and social policy (Masters, 1983) reveals the discipline’s renewed interest in policy issues that lend themselves to scientific inquiry. Discussion of these issues has advanced, moreover, from internecine disputes about whether research findings should be brought to bear on policy decisions, to debates that assume research and policymaking are inextricably linked and focus on means of promoting a more effective collaboration between these two realms of endeavor (Bronfenbrenner, 1974; National Research Council, 1978; Takanishi, DeLeon, & Pallak, 1983).

* The policy analysis on which portions of this paper are based was carried out by the author while employed at the Congressional Budget Office. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., August 1982. I am grateful to Ross Parke, Ruby Takanishi, and John Lawrence for their valuable suggestions on an earlier draft of this article.

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Deborah Phillips, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL 61820.

t Since 1976, the SRCD has established a Washington Liaison Office, formed a Committee on Child Development and Social Policy, and launched the Congressional Science Fellowships in Child Development Program, all of which are geared toward promoting collaboration between research and policy.

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One avenue of collaboration that is frequently mentioned involves translating research findings into common parlance for dissemination to policymakers and the general public (Maccoby, Kahn, & Everett, 1983; McCall, Lonnborg, Gregory, Murray, & Leavitt, 1982). Implicit in this seemingly straightforward formula are two ingredients that belie the true art involved in bringing scientific expertise into the policy arena. First, collaboration requires that researchers remain informed about the ever-shifting issues that provide the focus for policy debates. Research that fails to address the foremost concerns of policymakers will remain on the sidelines. Second, even the most pertinent research findings need to be shepherded through the policy process to avoid selective uses of results, disregard for methodological shortcomings, and exploitation of research findings to justify purely political agen- das-abuses of research that mount exponentially with the political delicacy of the issue at hand. This requires that researchers learn to negotiate the political landscape and to decipher the prevailing legislative imperatives that will determine policymakers’ receptivity to bids for collaboration.

Emerging efforts to bridge disciplinary boundaries (e.g., Melton, 1983; Tin- sley & Parke, 1983) and to design ecologically valid research (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) hold substantial promise for tailoring research to the needs of policymakers. Indeed, many of these efforts have their genesis in policy developments that prompted the discipline of child development to reframe enduring issues and to examine questions that had previously remained outside its sphere of inquiry (Bron- fenbrenner, 1974). Yet, in terms of the policy domain on which this article focuses, current conceptualizations of interdisciplinary and ecological research are in- complete. Several recent applications of the ecological model to the day care literature have, for example, pointed in the right direction by recommending that research on day care broaden its purview to include impacts on the families of the children in day care, the workplace, and the community (Belsky, Steinberg, & Walker, 1982; Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Even these innovative calls for research falter, however, as the discussion advances from the familiar microsystem to the relatively uncharted exo- and macrosystems: which encompass most of the outcomes of interest to policymakers.

This article directs attention to the neglected domain of policy outcomes and argues for the reexamination of prevailing assumptions about how to approach the study of day care. Specifically, emerging day care policy issues are discussed in light of the new topics they raise for theoretical and empirical investigation. The impetus for reexamination derives from the recent convergence of contradictory demographic and political developments whereby federal support is being diverted away from precisely those populations where the greatest future needs for day care as-

2 In Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model of human development, four concentric circles of influence are delineated: (1) The microsystem represents any immediate setting containing the child (e.g. the home); (2) the mesosystem captures the interrelationships among these settings (e.g., home-school interface); (3) the exosystem contains the formal and informal societal structures that do not contain the child, but impinge indirectly on her development (e.g., workplace, the government), and (4) the mac- rosystem encompasses prevailing values and organizational patterns that broadly characterize a culture (e.g., family privacy, separation of church and state).

DAY CARE RESEARCH AND POLICYMAKING 93

sistance are likely to arise. By way of introduction, the article discusses several overarching factors that are presently shaping the context within which day care issues are being considered. An overview of pertinent sociodemographic trends and changes in federal support for day care is then provided as a base from which a discussion of emerging policy issues proceeds. The final section examines the implications of these emerging issues for the future direction and design of day care

research.

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON DAY CARE POLICY AND RESEARCH

The relationship between research and policy at any particular point in time is profoundly affected by a variety of contextual factors (Hayes, 1982). These factors, including prevailing values, the political climate, and economic conditions, work in concert to set the broad parameters of policy debates. Moreover, they play a critical role in determining how particular research findings will be received by the key players in these debates. Each of these factors figures prominently in the ongoing development of day care policy.

Prevailing Values

Day care services in the United States have evolved in the context of multiple and conflicting values, including family privacy, women’s rights, concern for child development, acculturation of minorities, and income redistribution. The combined effect of this checkered history is reflected in the extreme ambivalence with which our society approaches day care as a social institution (Belsky et al., 1982; Peters, 1980; Steiner, 1976; Zigler & Muenchow, 1983).

Of particular significance for today’s day care debates is the conflict between values that urge early intervention and those that seek to protect family privacy. In a society that safeguards parents’ responsibility for childrearing, a direct government role in day care is inevitably viewed as a threat to family privacy (Hayes, 1982; Peters, 1980). The doctrine of parens pat&e, which justifies government assumption of parents’ rights, has generally been restricted to clear cases of abandonment, abuse, exploitative labor practices and the like. Day care has consistently been interpreted as exceeding the appropriate limits of government intervention, except during temporary periods of national crisis (Fein & Clarke-Stewart, 1973). Yet, these limits have been circumvented to support day care facilities for the children of immigrant, impoverished, and minority families (Belsky et al., 1982). The justifi- cation for this selective intervention strategy has involved construing day care as a child welfare service for the protection of children from “inadequate” families, or as an employment service for parents who require an incentive to work (Fein & Clarke-Stewart, 1973; Grubb & Lazerson, 1982; Rothman, 1973; Steinfels, 1973). These conflicting commitments to family privacy and to intervention are reflected in public perceptions that encompass government-supported day care services within the conglomerate of poverty programs, and fail to acknowledge the substantial federal day care subsidies channeled to nonpoor families.

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The Political Climate

Because policy positions on day care tend to serve as proxies for unarticulated, yet deep seated, beliefs about the appropriate relationship between government institutions and families, it is difficult to find a more politically explosive issue (Woolsey, 1977). In conjunction with the misperception that government day care subsidies are targeted on poor and minority families, this divisive climate has served to relegate day care to the dubious political category of a secondary, if not tainted, issue. As a consequence, legislative debates about day care tend to become em- broiled in other issues of public policy (e.g., workfare requirements for the poor, job displacement, tax equity) that divert attention from thoughtful consideration of concerns directly pertinent to the extrafamilial supervision of young children.

Economic Conditions

Day care services, like other social services, are particularly vulnerable to fluctua- tions of the economy. During periods of rapid economic growth, social programs that receive annual appropriations from the Congress tend to expand with little scrutiny, only to be followed by sharply curtailed support when the economy worsens. At the same time, however, the populations eligible for government aid often expand during periods of unemployment and economic decline. As the tension between fiscal austerity and social needs mounts, congressional decisions affecting service programs become primarily dominated by budgetary considerations, as we are witnessing today. Single votes on omnibus budget bills, rather than substantive deliberations about children’s needs, have come to determine how many children will receive subsidized day care services and what forms of day care will be available to them.

DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIAL TRENDS

projected changes in the nation’s demographic makeup will likely affect the number of families seeking day care services, the types of arrangements that will meet their needs, and the price they will pay for day care (Hofferth, 1979; Lave & Angrist, 1975; Waite, Suter, & Shortlidge, 1977). The population of children under age 10 is projected to increase by 14% during this decade (Bureau of the Census, 1982ata notable departure from the 1970s when the number of young children declined by 1 1%-with the most rapid growth (17%) occurring among the under age 6 population. Moreover, of critical import for the demand for day care, most of these children will be reared by two employed parents or by a single employed parent. By 1990, the percentage of children with mothers in the labor force is expected to reach 53% among children under age 6 living with both parents or with only their mothers-12.2 million children-and 81% among school-age children (ages 6-17)-or 33.5 million children (See Table 1).

The combined effect of these projections is that, by 1990, almost 3.5 million more children under age 6 than today will have employed mothers-a 40% rise between 1980 and 1990. Among schooi-age children, the increase is 33%, with 8.4


TABLE 1 Rates of Maternal Labor Force Participation by Age of Youngest Child and

Household Type and Percentage of Children with Employed Mothersa by Age of Child: 1970, 1980, and 1990 (Numbers in Thousands; Rates in Percentages)

Population

Actual Projected

1970 1980 1990

Total Children Under Age 6

Maternal labor force participation rates Married mothers, husband present

Other ever-married mothers

Percentage of children with mothers in the labor force

Total Children Aged 6-17 Maternal labor force participation rates

Married mothers, Husband present

Other ever-married mothers

Percentage of children with mothers in the labor force

19,513 19,629 22.997

30.3 45.1 55.3

50.7 59.3 63.4

28.6 44.4 53.0

45,581 44,111 41,325

49.2 61.7 70.1

67.3 74.2 73.8

43.8 57.0 81.1’=

Sources. Figures for 1970 are from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statis- tics, Perspectives on Working Women: A Databook, Tables 26,30, and 34 (October 1980); Figures for 1980 are from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, News, 81-522, Table 2 (November 15.1982); projections for 1990 are from Ralph Smith, Women in the Labor Force in 1990, Table 14 (The Urban Institute, ISJS), and from Phillips et al., 1983). aThese figures exclude children who live with only their fathers or with neither parent. bBecause these estimates exclude never-married women, they result in an underestimate of the number of children under age 6 with working mothers in 1990 of about 287,000 and an underestimate of about 325,000 for 6- to 17-year-olds. These figures also exclude children who are placed in day care for reasons other than maternal employment.

million children added to the population with employed mothers between 1980 and 1990. If current patterns of full- and part-time employment persist, close to 70% of these employed mothers will work full time, even among those with children under the age of 6 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, March, 1983). Moreover, indications of a close association between early and later labor force participation (Heckman, 1978) imply that this cohort of mothers, many of whom worked prior to having children, will remain in or rapidly re-enter the labor force following childbirth, exacerbating anticipated shortages in infant day care (Zigler & M,uenchow, 1983).

Several additional trends that are coinciding with these shifts in childbearing and maternal employment are likely to compound families’ needs for day care. First, by 1990, an estimated 16 million children under age 18, or one out of every four children, are expected to reside with one parent, generally their mothers-up from 12 million, or less than 20% of all children in 1980 (Bureau of the Census, 1982b). Even among children under the age of 6,4.8 million, 9r 2 1% , are expected to live in single-parent families by 1990. This group has a significant impact on the

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demand for public day care because, on the one hand, single mothers have substantially higher rates of labor force participation than married mothers (see Table 1) and, on the other hand, their poverty rate greatly exceeds that of other household types.

Second, judging from current disparities in family income, the shift toward female-headed families is likely to be reflected in a higher incidence of poverty among children. Presently, children who live with only their mothers are between four and five times more likely to be poor than children living in all other types of families. Approximately half of all children under 18 in female-headed households, and 65% of children under 6 in such households, live in poverty. The overall poverty rate for single parent families has crept upward from 39% to 44% in just the last two years. Indeed, regardless of their living circumstances, 20% of all children under age 18 are now living in poverty as compared to 16% just two years ago (Bureau of the Census, 1982~). Because, in the absence of informal sources of day care provision, poor families must rely on publicly-supported day care if they are to provide safe care for their children while at work; growth in this population holds important implications for the allocation of federal day care resources.

Third, traditional sources of informal day care provision-fathers, teenage siblings, and elderly relatives-may become less readily available in the coming years. Not only are children becoming increasingly concentrated in single parent families, but women are electing to have fewer, more closely-spaced children, a growing proportion of the grandparent generation is remaining in the work force, and high mobility rates are likely to attenuate regular contact between nuclear families and their extended kin (Komhaber & Woodward, 1981; Masnick & Bane, 1980). If the informal day care market dwindles, families will, of necessity, look to both public and private sources of day care provision to a greater extent, with family income determining the range of feasible options.

THE FEDERAL ROLE IN DAY CARE

The federal government provides financial support for day care-$3.2 billion in 1982-through a patchwork of direct and indirect (primarily tax) expenditures3 (see Table 2). The four major direct expenditure programs-Grants to States for Social Services (Title XX), the supportive services component of the Work Incentive (WIN) program, Child Welfare Services (Title IV-B), and Head St&-channel

3 Direct expenditures refer to federal day care subsidies that are provided to day care programs for the purpose of purchasing slots for a specified number of children. These expenditures require an annual appropriation of funds and are thus readily visible components of the federal budget. Indirect expenditures comprise those subsidies that reimburse individuals for their day care expenses through lower taxes (dependent care tax credit) or higher benefits (AFDC work expense allowance). These expenditures do not require annual appropriations, affect the federal budget through revenue losses accumulated throughout the year, and are thus more inconspicuous components of the budget. Unlike direct expenditures, the federal costs of these indirect subsidies rise automatically when growing numbers of families make use of them.

4 Head Start has not been conceived of as a day care program, yet 20% of the enrolled children in 1982 received full-day care. This program may also meet the needs of families who require day care services to support part-day employment. Moreover, in the past, Title XX funds have been received by Head Start projects to provide extended hours of day care for working parents.


TABLE 2 Day Care Programs, Participants, and Estimated Federal Expenditures

Program

Federal Budget

Authority, Federal Fiscal Outlays Total

Year 1982 1981 Recipients, (millions (millions 1981

of dollars) of dollars) (thousands) Eligibility

Grants to States for Social Ser- vices (Title XXI

WIN Suppor- tive Services (Title IV-C)

Child Welfare Services (Title IV-B)

Head Start

Preschool In- centive Grants

AFDC Work Expense Allowance, (Title IV-A)

Dependent Care Tax Credit

Dependent Care As- sistance Program

374

14.1

2.9

912

24 25 237

115 200 180

1.755

1 NA NA

591

24.2

3.3

819

1.170

551

100

4.5

379

4,231

Determined by states; for- merly restricted to recipients with incomes at or below 115% of the state median income; now no income eligibility criteria

apply. All AFDC recipients en-

rolled in WIN

Homeless, dependent, abused, or neglected children, regardless of family income.

Children aged 3-5; 90% of enrollees must be from families with incomes below the poverty level; 10% of enrollment is re- served for handicapped children.

Handicapped children aged 3-5.

Families with dependent children and incomes below 150 percent of state standard of need.

Employed parents with dependent children under age 15 or handicapped dependents of any age.

Any business providing financial or in-kind child care support for employees.

Sources. Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and Treasury and the Congressional Budget Office. Note. Documentation and footnotes are available from the author.

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subsidies primarily to day care centers. Of these, Title XX and Head Start are the largest sources of direct support for day care authorized at $1.3 billion in 1982.

Indirect support for day care is provided to individuals through the dependent care tax credit and the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) work- expense allowance, as well as to businesses through business expense deductions. The dependent care tax credit reimburses parents for a portion of their work-related day care expenses through lower tax liabilities, regardless of the specific type of day care purchased. In a similar fashion, the AFDC work-expense allowance permits AFDC recipients who are employed or in training to deduct day care expenses from their gross earnings for the purpose of determining their benefit amount. Prior to 1981, the allowable AFDC day care deduction was unlimited, but it is now capped at $160 per child “per month, and states may reduce this ceiling for part-time workers. As with the dependent care tax credit, parents who rely on the AFDC allowance are unconstrained in their choice of arrangements.

Subsidies to private employers are provided through business expense deductions for costs incurred by sponsoring a variety of day care services, such as work- site programs, information and referral services, or cafeteria benefit plans that include day care benefits. In addition, the 1981 federal tax law clarified that day care provided by an employer could not be considered “income” to the employee or subjected to taxation.

The Distribution of Day Care Benefits

The net effect of the current system of federal support for day care is to provide different sources of subsidy to families in different income brackets. The direct expenditures and the AFDC work expense allowance are targeted predominantly on low-income families, while the dependent care tax credit is, in practice, targeted on middle- and upper-income families. In 1981, for example, 94% of the tax benefits went to families with incomes of $10,000 or more (Department of the Treasury, 1983). The major reason is that this credit is not refundable-that is, it cannot exceed the amount of the family’s tax liability-and most families with incomes below $10,000 pay little or no income tax.

A portion of a third group of families-those at the low end of the middle- income range-is affected by a discontinuity in benefits created by this two-tiered system of federal day care support. Many of these families are no longer eligible for either Title XX or AFDC day care subsidies, yet do not have sufficient tax liabilities to collect benefits from the dependent care tax credit. In effect, because these families receive no or minimal federal support for day care, their choices are restricted to seeking informal care or low-cost private care, leaving their children with no supervision, or losing the income of one parent who opts to stay home with the child.

Recent Changes in Federal Day Care Support and Their Implications

Recent changes affecting this system of federal support for day care are likely to exacerbate these disparities in the types and level of benefits available to families at


different income levels. Briefly, changes enacted in 1981 reduced overall funds for the direct and AFDC day care subsidies, with the exception of Head Start. As can be seen in Table 2, 1982 funds fell 37% below 1981 levels, amounting to a loss of over $300 million in direct and AFDC day care subsidies. The $93 million, or 11%) increase in Head Start funds does not begin to compensate for these cuts.

In contrast, day care benefits provided through the dependent care tax credit have been substantially expanded (Palmer & Sawhill, 1982). Working parents are now reimbursed for 20% to 30% of their day care expenses up to $2,400 a year for one child and $4,800 for two or more children. Accordingly, tax losses due to the credit are expected to climb from $1.2 billion in 1980 to $2.0 billion in 1983, making the credit the single largest source of federally-subsidized day care. This shift toward channeling federal support for day care through the tax system guarantees that an increasing share of federal day care benefits will accrue to middle- and upper-income families.

The implications of this shift in the major beneficiaries of federal support will depend on the number and types of families who seek day care services in the coming years, as well as upon the available supply of affordable services. Changes in the supply of day care are difficult to project. Contradictory trends have been suggested (Hofferth, 1979; Phillips, Cullinan, Koretz, Levine, & Moon, 1983), depending on the supply of day care providers, usually women who will accept salaries that hover around the minimum wage. Factors that would be expected to increase the supply of day care providers are the expanding female labor force, the increasing population of elderly women for whom employment as a day care pro- vider may be an appealing option, and the rising number of young mothers, some of whom may elect to provide family day care as a means of combining childrearing and employment. However, if more lucrative job opportunities, such as in high technology manufacture and assembling, become increasingly available to low- skilled women, some would be expected to abandon marginal employment as day care providers.

To the extent that the demographic trends described above converge to produce a growing population of low-income children who require day care services, p~~uxes to increase federal support for low-cost day care options are likely to mount. Correspondingly, if federal provision of low-cost day care continues to lag behind the pace of population changes, the result would likely be the purchase of fewer or lower quality services by families with low and moderate incomes. Outcomes might include greater reliance on informal care to the extent that it is available, on day care programs that keep costs low by reducing the quality and quantity of supervision, or, in some cases, leaving children with no supervision at all.

EMERGING DAY CARE ISSUES

The convergence of a rising population of children with day care needs, many of whom are likely to reside in low-income and single-parent families, and a realloca- tion of federal day care resources from programs that serve low-income families to those that benefit the nonpoor, will define the broad parameters of policy debates about day care during the foreseeable future. As a consequence of the gap between

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future day care needs and available services that this situation may produce, issues concerning the supply and cost of day care are likely to command considerable attention in the years ahead. Indeed, urged on by the current climate of budget stringency and interest in promoting private-sector service initiatives, the federal policy debate about day care has already shifted away from a focus on the quality of federally-funded programs towards concerns about the cost of subsidizing day care, the broader social benefits reaped from federal participation in day care, and the availability of alternative sources of day care provision.

Quality of Care

With the shift toward tax subsidies and state discretion over direct services, the federal government has effectively relinquished responsibility for assuring that day care programs meet minimum standards of quality. This approach eliminates all opportunities for federal monitoring of the quality of the programs that parents select. Instead, responsibility for the quality ‘and safety of day care programs will remain the province of state and local governments.

Public Costs

Concerns about the public costs of subsidizing day care invariably mount when scarce resources prompt intense scrutiny of budget decisions. The affordability of day care for families may also become a more salient issue, particularly if low- income families who had previously relied on government subsidies or informal arrangements increasingly seek day care services in the private market. Problems with paying the full cost of day care are particularly likely to affect those low- income families whose incomes place them just above the eligibility cut-off for direct public subsidies-a cut-off that most states are now establishing at lower income levels-but who do not earn enough to reap benefits from the dependent care tax credit.

Social Purposes of Federal Involvement in Day Care

Evidence of cost-effectiveness could provide powerful data to support a federal role in the provision of day care services. To the extent that the goals of federal involvement in day care have been articulated, they are predicated on the assumption that the costs of failing to provide day care (that is, the costs of unemployment, pro- longed welfare dependency, remedial education, etc.) exceed the costs of subsidizing day care. A related assumption is that federal participation in day care ultimately produces a net gain in tax and Social Security revenues by encouraging employment. There is, however, a dearth of hard evidence concerning the validity of these assumptions, leaving day care programs and the families that rely on them relatively vulnerable to budget cuts during periods of fiscal restraint.

Alternative Sources of Support

Given the unlikelihood of an expanded federal role in the provision of low-cost day care in the near future, pressures to seek alternative means of providing day care


are likely to increase. Along these lines, increasing attention has been directed towards expanding the participation of both schools and the business sector. This burgeoning interest has not, however, been accompanied by thoughtful analyses of the possible benefits and liabilities of channeling growing numbers of children into school and employment-sponsored day care.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH

Designing research that addresses these emerging policy issues poses a major chal- lenge to developmental psychologists who seek to inform policy as well as to advance theory. Historically, the child development literature has approached the study of day care as an opportunity to examine the developmental effects of an extrafamilial childrearing environment. Hence, the central research questions have focused almost exclusively on how day care environments affect the attachment bond and the development of social and cognitive skills, defined both in comparison to home-rearing and in relation to variations in the qualitative characteristics of day care programs (Belsky & Steinberg, 1978; McCartney, Starr, Phillips, Grajek, & Schwarz, 1982). Unlike researchers, however, policymakers must place this empirical literature into the context of economic and political considerations. They cannot afford to ignore the facts that providing day care is an expensive undertak- ing, that high quality day care is much more costly to provide than custodial day care, and that every policy decision entails difficult trade-offs between the quality of services that can be provided and the sheer number of children who can be served with a finite amount of federal funds (Robins & Weiner, 1978; Ruopp & Travers, 1982).

The following suggestions for research are intended to urge developmental psychologists to broaden their orientation toward day care issues. Without attempting to be exhaustive, I outline a series of research questions that would address more systematically a variety of emerging policy-relevant issues and thereby enhance the discipline’s contribution to current policy debates about day care. At the outset, several familiar research issues related to the quality of care are reframed in ways that are better informed by today’s policy concerns. Subsequently, several new areas that warrant the serious attention of developmental psychologists are described.

Quality of Care and Child Development

Although the promulgation of day care standards has receded into obscurity as a federal-level concern, the shift toward state responsibility in this area suggests a neiv audience for research designed to address questions of day care quality. State policymakers have expressed concerns, for example, about the effect of government regulation on the day care utilization patterns of parents (see Hayes, 1982). Because staff wages constitute the major expense of operating a day care program, it has been suggested that regulations that include stringent provisions about staff-child ratios may drive a portion of providers either out of business or underground. What types of families would be affected? Would the benefits to children of assuring higher quality care outweigh the possible costs of center closings? Are some forms

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of regulation available (e.g., voluntary certification, gradual implementation) that would enable most centers to remain in operation and to upgrade their quality of care?

Another audience for research on day care quality consists of the growing network of information and referral agencies which assist parents to find and select day care facilities. These agencies could benefit greatly from research that identifies readily observable benchmarks of quality such as staff training, group size, and staff/child ratios (Divine-Hawkins, 1981; Ruopp, Travers, Olantz, & Chelen, 1979). Along these lines, the study of quality in family day care homes (Carew, 1979; Clarke-Stewart, 1982; Golden, Rosenbluth, Grossi, Policare, Freeman, & Brownlee, 1978)-the amorphous setting which provides almost 80% of the formal day care in this country (Ruopp et al., 1979~in infant day care programs (Ruben- stein, Howes, & Boyle, 1981; Zigler & Muenchow, 1983), and in franchised day care centers, such as Kindercare, warrant more attention from developmental psychologists. As with investigations of center-based programs, studies of these other forms of day care need to move beyond home-reared versus day care comparisons and begin to relate specific components of these day care environments to child outcomes (McCartney et al., 1982; Travers, Beck, & Bissell, 1982). The franchised centers, in particular, would lend themselves to comparisons with nonfranchised programs. These centers are available nationwide, are provided with a standardized curriculum which is being expanded to infant care, and tend to charge’lower fees than other centers (Coelen, Glantz, & Calore, 1979). They may thus account for a growing share of day care enrollments as increasing numbers of families seek lower-cost options. How does the quality of care in these programs compare to that provided in other centers? What educational outcomes derive to the children from the standardized curriculum? What can we learn from such programs about parents’ considerations when selecting day care arrangements?

Some indices of quality have been largely ignored in the day care literature, such as staff turnover and job satisfaction, availability of supplementary services, and stability of the peer group. Recent investigations of caregiver-parent commu- nication (Hughes & Durio, 1983; Joffe, 1977; Powell, 1980; Zigler & Turner, 1982), which have called attention to caregivers’ significance as supports for parenting, demonstrate the value of expanding our repertoire of day care measures.

Finally, an important contribution would be made by studies of the naturalis- tic behavior of parents and day care providers as concerns the selection of day care arrangements and the choice of a curriculum and other program features. For example, there are indications that considerations of cost and proximity influence parents’ selection of a facility to a far greater extent than do concerns about quality of care (Hofferth, 1979; Kurz, Robins, & Spiegelman, 1975). Does this hypothesis hold up under careful study? Would parents make other choices if they were aware of research-based information about the effects of specific types and features of care on children? On what basis do caregivers make decisions about the organization of their programs? How would they make use of research-based information about important indices of quality, if made available to them?


If the research community restricts its study of day care to questions of quality, however, many equally important questions will go largely unanswered. The recent redirection of policy concerns about day care affords the opportunity for the research community to recognize that day care impinges on children’s lives in ways that extend far beyond the quality of direct caregiving. In the absence of a comparable conceptual shift, developmental research will simply not be brought to bear upon future policy deliberations about day care.

Day Care Shortages

Because the child development literature on day care arose from concerns about nonmaternal childrearing, virtually no attention has been given to critical developmental issues associated with the unavailability of day care-a situation where the intervention of interest is absent. Yet, as resources for low-cost day care dwindle, increasing numbers of families may be affected by shortages of particular types of care (e.g., after-school, care for handicapped or sick children, infant care) that meet their standards for quality. Among the important, and as yet unaddressed, questions are: Which families are most likely to be adversely affected by day care shortages? How do families cope with major disruptions in their day care arrangements? Is the persistent appearance of “latchkey” children in day care surveys (Lueck, Orr, & O’Connell, 1982) attributable to day care shortages or to other factors? What are the longterm effects on children whose day care histories are marked by stopgap arrangements or frequent changes in placements?

Policy Goals of Day Care

There are tremendous needs for empirical data regarding the validity of the basic premises on which government involvement in day care has been justified, namely that day care enhances child development, serves as an efficient vehicle for the delivery of other services, facilitates productive employment on behalf of parents, and provides job opportunities for welfare recipients. As might be expected, the child development community is quite vocal about the child-related goals of federal day care assistance and almost mute about the remaining goals.

Chti development goals. Among the bountiful store of findings about the developmental effects of day care and other early childhood programs, three sets of results are directly germaine to questions about the federal role in day care. First, several major studies (Lazar, Darlington, Murray, Royce, & Snipper, 1982; Ramey, Dorval, & Baker-Ward, 1981; Ruopp et al., 1979) have now demonstrated that investments in early childhood programs that provide structured learning ac- tivities may alleviate costly educational failures associated with special education placement, grade retention, and declining achievement. Second, these effects are most likely to characterize programs that serve high-risk children-the target population for a large share of federal education expenditures (e.g., Title I, Follow Through, Handicapped Education monies). Third, the National Day Care Study (Divine-Hawkins, 1981; Ruopp et al., 1979) further revealed that positive cognitive

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outcomes can be traced to identifiable characteristics of day care programs-small groups, appropriate caregiver training, and large staff-child ratios-that are amena- ble to government regulation.

The major shortcoming of this literature is that, with few exceptions (see Golden et al., 1978, for example), documentation of these outcomes has been restricted to very costly intervention programs that are neither viable options for far- reaching government investments in day care, nor representative of the day care arrangements used by the vast majority of families. A second shortcoming concerns the minimal attention that has been paid to noneducational outcomes which are also directly associated with federal expenditures, such as child health and nutrition, child abuse, and foster care placement (see Richmond & Janis, 1982, for an excel- lent overview of health issues in day care). Questions could be raised, for example, about whether lower cost features of interventions (e.g., group size, parent involvement), which could easily be transferred to day care programs, are sufficient to produce beneficial child outcomes. Similarly, the specific features of these programs that promote child health, such as sanitation measures and first aid training, or optimal childrearing, such as parent involvement, require elucidation. Further insight is also needed into the processes through which day care programs exert their influence on child outcomes. Evidence has suggested that children acquire skills at day care that, in turn, affect the quality of the caregiving they elicit from their parents (see Belsky et al., 1982). Other indirect mechanisms of this nature undoubtedly operate and would provide an intriguing topic for study. In terms of policy issues, explication of day care benefits that span a variety of outcomes (e.g., child cognition, child health, and effective parenting) demonstrates the broad payoffs of day care and may thus provide the base to establish a diverse coalition of support for this social service.

Delivery of preventative services. Information regarding day care’s effectiveness as a vehicle for delivering preventative services would have direct applicability to current concerns about service coordination and cost-effectiveness. Of particular interest to policymakers are services such as health care, nutrition, parent education, and prevention of child abuse. In the area of nutrition, for example, day care providers are in an optimal position to serve as brokers between malnourished children and local health professionals. Similarly, nutrition specialists could offer valuable staff training and technical assistance to day care providers. Empirical data concerning the benefits to children of such reciprocal arrangements and any associated cost savings would be of great value to a variety of policymakers including hospital administrators, state health officials, and day care licensing staff. Parents may also welcome research in this area, as suggested by indications that they place a high premium on entrusting their children to caregivers who have first aid training (Canada, 1983).

A comprehensive study of day care’s role as a preventative service will require that current conceptions of appropriate sites for day care research be expanded to include not only family day care homes and in-home care, but also the innovative models for day care that are now surfacing. Examples of these include


magnet day care centers, which coordinate otherwise isolated family day care homes and centers, information and referral agencies (Diamond & Simons, 1982; Levine, 1982), and after-school programs initiated jointly by school districts and day care providers.

Among the pertinent issues suitable for research are: Do umbrella organizations such as magnet centers and information agencies, which may offer education and health care advice, promote developmentally beneficial practices in participat- ing day care programs? Is there any association between deliberate preventative efforts (e.g., parent education, maintenance of an emergency hot line) and the incidence of child abuse or family break-up? Do parents develop a stronger sense of investment in day care programs that require their participation or does this added demand increase the pressures they experience in combining parenting and career roles, and how are children affected? In research of this nature, it will be important to distinguish effects associated with regular use of day care and those attributable to the use of day care as a temporary crisis intervention. Again, both direct and medi- ated effects of day care in preventing child welfare and health care problems merit attention. For example, a cross-cultural study by Rohner (1975) revealed that child care assistance from adult relatives promoted greater parental acceptance of their children-a factor that appears to bear some association to child abuse (Parke, 198 1).

Employment and fumiZy income. Turning to the premises for government participation that link the provision of day care to families’ employment patterns and income, the quality of the literature is similarly uneven. A fair amount of evidence can be brought to bear on policy questions concerning day care’s influence on women’s decisions to enter the labor force. In contrast, little is known about other employment-related effects of day care, including its viability or desirability as a major source of jobs for welfare recipients (Haveman & Watts, 1978; Pechman & Timpane, 1975).

Available evidence regarding the determinants of maternal labor force participation converges on the conclusion that readily available day care is the critical factor for between 3% and 18% of previously nonworking mothers (Bureau of the Census, 1982d; Ditmore & Prosser, 1973; Kurz et al., 1975). The need for and availability of employment appear to figure at least as prominently in women’s employment decisions. There are, however, recent indications that the unavailability of day care is most likely to constrain labor force participation for mothers who are young, unmarried, poorly educated, and who have family incomes below $5,000 (Presser & Baldwin, 1980). These are precisely the groups of mothers for whom the alternative to employment is likely to be welfare dependency. It is also important to recognize that these questions about maternal labor force participation have been examined largely in the context of income maintenance experiments, which focus on broader issues regarding the poverty-reducing and employment effects of a negative income tax. Hence, the literature lacks carefully controlled investigations that sample mothers who are seeking employment or working for the purpose of examining the effects of day care shortages, unreliable arrangements, or program closings on their ability to acquire and maintain a job.

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Moreover, there has been scant attention in the day care and employment literature to either longterm or nonmonetary outcomes, such as enduring improve- ments in mothers’ earning power, older children’s perceptions about their own employment prospects (see Bloom-Feshbach, Bloom-Feshback, & Heller, 1982), and the likelihood that the children will become economically independent as adults. Do children raised in families in which the mother is unemployed due to the unavailability of day care, as compared to matched controls, develop different vocational aspirations or conceptions of the utility of seeking gainful employment? At what age do differences of this nature emerge, and do they vary with family constellation? How do these proposed differences manifest themselves over the life course? These are among the questions that could be informed by research.

Developmental psychologists have not altogether ignored economic issues pertinent to the provision of day care. Several large-scale studies have found, for example, that reliable day care arrangements are associated with enhanced educational attainments for mothers (Lally & Honig, 1977; Ramey et al., 1981), and maternal employment in occupations that require more skilled labor (Ramey et al., 1981). These favorable results must be qualified by the findings of similar studies that failed to discover such positive effects on family income (Golden et al., 1978; Steinberg & Green, 1979).

Job Pe$ormance. Beyond these broad questions about labor force participation and family income, there is a conspicuous absence of systematic analysis bearing on the association between the adequacy of day care arrangements and job performance, despite the emergence of several impressive reviews of relevant issues (Bohen & Viveros-Long, 1981; Kamerman & Kingston, 1982; Kanter, 1977). These issues are, however, directly pertinent to legislators’ current concerns about national productivity and to employers’ personnel policies. There is a pressing need for research that addresses the impact of day care on job productivity, employee morale, and absenteeism. Available information is largely restricted to anecdotal data and scattered reports about, for example, child illness as a major cause of absenteeism for women (Steers & Rhodes, 1978), workers’ perceived conflicts between inconvenient or excessive work hours and family life (Quinn & Staines, 1979), particularly among families with preschoolers (Pleck, Staines, & Lang, 1978), and correlations between job satisfaction and availability of day care (Pleck et

al., 1978). A related issue concerns the large number of parents who stagger their work

hours to cover child care (Bane, Lein, O’Connell, Stueve, & Welles, 1979; Hof- ferth, 1979; Woolsey, 1977). There is no information about the economic costs to families of these arrangements, the productivity costs to employers, or the effects on children. Of particular concern are reports that many families accommodate their work schedules by constructing elaborate day care packages that require children to move frequently among several arrangements (Bane et al., 1979; Hof- ferth, 1979). This provides little continuity of care for children and would appear to be a relatively fragile solution to families’ day care needs, given that one unreliable caregiver would disrupt the entire configuration. On both these accounts, these


patchwork arrangements warrant serious study from the perspective of developmental psychology. Exploratory investigations that follow families while their children are of preschool age for the purpose of tracing their evolving work-family accommodations and ensuing effects on a range of outcomes, as outlined above, would provide a welcome complement to the retrospective studies that presently dominate the literature.

A related issue deserving of more systematic study is whether reliable day care arrangements, which correspond to families’ preferences, can buffer the de- leterious effects of stress arising from work-family interferences (Hoffman, in press; Kamerman & Hayes, 1982; Piotrkowski, 1979). Do parents who report feelings of security and satisfaction with their day care arrangements show fewer signs of stress and/or report greater enjoyment of both work and family roles? What factors are specifically associated with “satisfaction” and, in particular, is satisfaction a joint function of workplace and day care factors?

Flexible workplace policies, such as leaves to care for sick children, choice of maternity or paternity leaves, the variety of scheduling innovations that fall under the rubric of flexitime, job sharing, and elimination of required overtime and swing shifts, are also often credited with facilitating families’ ability to combine the dual demands of employment and childrearing. Although these types of policies have numerous proponents, available evidence regarding their family impacts tends to be inconclusive. For example, Winett and Neale (1980) report that workers who switched from a regular work schedule to flexitime were able to spend more time in the evening with their families. Bohen and Viveros-Long (1981), however, found no differences between employees on standard time and flexitime in time spent on childrearing or in the degree of equity in parents’ division of family responsibilities. Again, policy deliberations would benefit from a more interdisciplinary approach that brings child development knowledge to bear upon these organizational and economic issues. Among the issues that could be informed by developmental research are: What features of the family, the child, or the work setting determine whether flexible workplace policies will produce desired outcomes? Is any one workplace policy particularly effective, or is it important to offer parents several options? Do any of these policies bear a more or less direct association to the ease with which parents can find acceptable day care arrangements?

Links Between Day Care and Other Institutions

On any given day, children move among multiple settings, only one of which may be a day care program. Several recent reviews of the day care literature (Belsky et al., 1982; Ruopp & Travers, 1982) have noted the paucity of research that addresses issues of coordination between day care and these other settings. A critical federal policy issue in this area concerns the discontinuities that characterize federal day care and education programs (Phillips, Bims, Rauch, Washington, & Zigler, in press). For example, no provisions exist to ensure that children who attend Title XX day care centers or Head Start programs will be picked up by Title I compensatory education programs upon entering elementary school. Yet the asso-

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ciation between follow-up remedial education and sustained cognitive gains has been well documented (Clarke & Clarke, 1976; Lazar et al., 1982). In the area of education alone, research is needed to identify parents’ perceived day care needs during the late preschool years, the costs/benefits to schools and families of different responses to those needs, and the associated implications for early elementary curricula and teacher training.

Alternative Approaches to Day Care

The current allocation of responsibility for providing and financing day care among different private and public institutions has developed over a period of years. The future course of this development is now open to change as diminished government assistance to nonprofit providers directs a greater share of the demand for day care to alternative sources of support. Schools and the business sector have been the most frequently cited candidates for an expanded role in day care. Full-day kindergarten and expanded after-school day care could serve several purposes simultaneously, namely alleviating day care-employment conflicts for parents, assuring adequate daytime supervision for children, reducing major transportation and safety problems, and expanding job opportunities for unemployed teachers. Which, if any, of these outcomes would materialize is a question that merits empirical investigation.

Efforts to promote employer participation in day care have captured the imag- ination of day care advocates and researchers alike. Several major govemment- funded investigations of employer-sponsored day care are currently underway ( ‘ ‘Discretionary grants, ” in 1982) and will soon contribute sorely needed data to the collection of individual case studies and technical reports presently available (Department of Labor, 1981; Perry, 1980). What little is known indicates that employer interest in providing support for day care is closely linked to reliance on a young, female labor force, as in the case of hospitals; that some employers who have sponsored day care centers report benefits such as increased ability to attract employees and lower absenteeism; and that employers prefer less costly indirect vehicles for sponsoring day care to work-site day care programs, such as including financial support for day care in employee benefit plans and offering information and referral services. Moreover, parents have expressed concerns about commuting with children, possible loss of neighborhood peer groups, and complications in arranging for day care at the time of job changes (Kamerman & Kahn, 198 1). Confirmation of this lackluster response by parents is available from the Quality of Employment Survey, conducted in 1977 (Quinn & Staines, 1979). Fewer than 10% of the survey’s respondents with children indicated work-site day care as a desired benefit.

These limited data raise numerous questions. Has the expanding population of working mothers brought with it a renewed interest in work-site day care? Do preferences vary by type of employment, age of child, job tenure or other identifiable characteristics? If so, what are the processes that underlie these correlational patterns? Are there any characteristics that distinguish work-site programs from other day care centers (e.g., proximity to parents, stability of facility) that might be


expected to produce a distinct pattern of child- or employment-related outcomes? Are work-site programs more effective than other forms of day care in alleviating stresses associated with juggling careers and families?

In addition to school-based and employer-sponsored programs, several highly imaginative approaches to providing day care services are gaining popularity, yet have been largely overlooked by the research community (notable exceptions include Kamerman & Kahn, 1981; Levine, 1982; Zigler & Gordon, 1982). These include intergenerational day care programs, day care information and referral networks, and magnet centers which serve as umbrella organizations for otherwise isolated families and center day care providers. For developmental psychologists interested in day care, these fledgling models of day care delivery afford opportunities to study intriguing empirical issues. For example, what effects does attend- ing intergenerational day care have on young children’s perceptions of the elderly? Does involvement in an important community service enhance the elderly’s feelings of competence and usefulness, as suggested by evaluations of the Foster Grand- parent program (Saltz, 197 l)? These new approaches to day care are also relatively compatible with the prevailing political ideology insofar as they capitalize on private-sector initiatives and maximize consumer discretion in selecting day care (Berger & Neuhaus, 1977). This implies that, for the time being, research that focuses on these previously neglected forms of day care may be greeted with greater receptivity in policy circles than studies of more traditional arrangements.

CONCLUSION

Efforts to foster a more effective liaison between research and policy have gained increasing attention and legitimacy among child development researchers. The suc- cess of these efforts will hinge largely on the extent to which research findings address the foremost concerns of policymakers. Presently, striking and contradictory changes in both the objectives of federal domestic policy and the demographic profile of American families are prompting policymakers to redefine the thrust of their concerns about day care. A comparable reassessment of research priorities is required of developmental psychologists who seek to apply their knowledge to the formulation of sound day care policies in the years ahead. This article calls upon researchers to venture beyond the use of familiar dependent variables and conve- nient sites for research-factors that have limited our empirical contributions to policy debates about day care. If used to advantage, this opportunity may both revitalize the study of day care and reveal new answers to enduring policy questions about this important social service for children.

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Day care: Promoting collaboration between research and policymaking

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