Executive Summary
This report uses data from the first three waves of the Growing Up in Scotland study ( GUS) to explore families' experiences of using childcare for children under the age of 5 years old. The report focuses particularly on families' use of multiple childcare providers examining the nature and extent of multiple use and the potential effects of early multi-provider care on later child outcomes at age 34 months and 58 months.
Prevalence of childcare
- Most families use childcare in the early years and a sizeable minority of parents in both cohorts report using multiple childcare providers at each sweep.
- In the birth cohort, use of multiple providers increased as the child aged. At age 0-1, 27% of families using childcare used two providers and 4% used three or more. At age 2-3, 34% used two providers and 8% used three or more.
- Amongst the child cohort, peak use of multiple provision coincided with the child's attendance at their statutory pre-school place at age 3-4. At age 2-3, 32% of families using childcare used two providers and 7% used three or more. These figures rose to 39% and 20% respectively at age 3-4.
- Parental employment in itself, and in combination with family type, affects use of multiple providers. Households where the child's mother was employed are more likely to use multiple childcare providers than those where the mother is not employed. Lone parents where the parent works report higher use of multiple provision than do unemployed lone parents and couple families where both parents work.
- Use of multiple providers over time is fairly common. Amongst those who had ever used two or more providers, 72% in the child cohort and 65% in the birth cohort had done so at any two or more sweeps including 38% and 29% who reported use of two or more providers at all sweeps.
Characteristics of childcare provision
- Higher durations of weekly childcare are associated with use of more childcare providers. In the birth cohort at sweep 1, whereas 25% of those using childcare for between 9 and 16 hours per week receive that care from two or more providers, the same is true for 38% of those who use childcare for between 17 and 40 hours.
- At each sweep, the majority of children who have three or more childcare arrangements experience a mix of informal and formal provision in these arrangements with the proportion experiencing this mix increasing as the children age (in the birth cohort, 56% at sweep 1, 78% at sweep 2, 85% at sweep 3).
- Parents who use more than one provider are more likely to pay for at least some of their child's childcare than parents using one provider. This reflects the greater likelihood that multiple users will use formal provision which requires payment, unlike many informal arrangements which are 'cost free' to parents. However, parents using multiple providers do not necessarily incur higher childcare costs overall owing to the particular mix and duration of provision and use across all families.
- The data shows that the predominant pattern of multiple childcare provision can be summed up as 'Grandparents plus some other form of childcare'.
Parental responses to childcare arrangements
- Levels of satisfaction with their main childcare provider, preferences for changing the main provider, and perceptions of the level of choice when choosing a childcare provider do not vary significantly amongst parents who use different numbers of childcare providers.
- There were no significant differences either between how easy users of one or multiple childcare providers had found it to arrange suitable childcare for the cohort child in the last year.
Effects of multiple childcare use on child outcomes
- For the birth cohort, analysis was undertaken to explore the independent association between various features of childcare arrangements experienced at age 10 months on cognitive development at age 34 months whilst controlling for key socio-economic characteristics which are known to influence cognitive ability in the early years.
- The analysis shows that of the various childcare characteristics at age 10 months considered, only weekly duration of non-parental care had any statistically significant association with the child's cognitive ability at age 34 months after controlling for key family socio-economic and demographic factors; non-parental care of between 17 and 40 hours per week was found to have a significant positive impact on a child's knowledge of vocabulary specifically amongst girls.
- The characteristics of childcare arrangements in the first year of life which could be considered to describe 'childcare fragmentation' - exposure to multiple providers, a greater mix of provision, and less time with any single provider - do not impact positively or negatively on child cognitive development at age 34 months.
- For the child cohort, the association between childcare features at age 34 months and behavioral development at age 58 months was explored.
- The analysis showed that after controlling for key family characteristics such as parental education levels and parental employment, experiencing 40 hours or more of care per week at age 34 months was detrimental to children's behavioural outcomes as they approached their fifth birthday. Further analysis suggested this relationship was significant particularly for girls and for children whose mothers were under 25 at the child's birth. No other childcare features were significant.
Conclusion
The picture presented by the data of childcare use by parents of young children in Scotland does suggest a degree of 'childcare fragmentation'; use of multiple providers is fairly common, as is use of a combination of formal and informal provider types and using different providers for different durations of care. Furthermore, all of these arrangements do change over time for some families.
This complex pattern of childcare arrangement may suggest some cause for concern, however there is no data to suggest either that parents are particularly dissatisfied with their arrangements - parents who use different numbers of childcare providers were no more likely to be dissatisfied with their main childcare provider, nor to have a preferences for changing their main provider, or to perceive they had less choice when choosing childcare provider than did parents using just a single provider - nor that experiencing multiple provision or a mix of provision per se has any particular positive or negative impact on child cognitive or behavioural outcomes at 34 and 58 months.
In fact, children's experience of non-parental childcare in the early years appears to be generally beneficial to their cognitive development on the basis of the outcome measures used in GUS, although the effects are not large.