The Effects of Early Child Care on Parenting and Child Development

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The Effects of Early Child Care on Parenting and
Child Development

• Draft Dissertation Proposal
• Lisa Stanley, November 2006
• lisat_at_ucla.edu

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Presentation Objectives

• Background
• Child care as an important public health and
  social issue
• Literature on the effects of early child care on
  parenting and child development outcomes
• Research aims
• Methods
• Data collection ECLS-B
• Proposed analysis
• Strengths limitations
• Implications for child and family policy

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Background Public Health Social Issue

• Dramatic changes in the early experiences of
  children with unknown outcomes
• Maternal employment 37 in 1975 vs. 64 in 1998
• Use of child care 2001, 50 of 9 month olds in
  child care
• Literature mixed about effects on children
  socio-emotional and cognitive development
• Debate about effects of child care
• Attachment theory Detrimental particularly when
  it starts early and is extensive
• Quality Beneficial when it is of high quality
• Maternal role satisfaction Negative effect if
  mother is not comfortable with her role in life
• Household economics theory For low-income
  family, relative benefits of maternal employment
  (with child placed in child care), outweigh the
  costs. Not the case for high-income families.

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Background - Literature

• Found evidence mixed about whether and for whom
  more child care has beneficial or detrimental
  effects.
• Studies often not comparable due to use of
  different outcome measures and analytic
  procedures.
• Some outcomes yet to be studied.
• Of 30 studies reviewed on effects of quantity of
  child care on parenting and child development
• 50 of the findings found interaction effects
• 30 found no relationship
• 25 negative main effects
• 8 positive main effects

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Research Aims

• Identify the factors found in literature that
  predict child development, and describe the
  ECLS-B study population in terms of these
  measures.
• Determine how the quantity of child care relates
  to the quality of parenting and whether this
  relationship is dependent on when child care
  begins, the mothers mental health, maternal
  education, maternal role satisfaction, or family
  income?
• Determine how the quantity of child care relates
  to child development and if this relationship is
  mediated or moderated by the quality of parenting?

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Adaptation of the NICHD model (NICHD 1997a)
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Methods Data SourceEarly Childhood Longitudinal
Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B)

• Who
• Nationally representative probability sample of
  children born in 2001
• Registered births within primary sampling units
  (e.g. contiguous counties)
• 14,000 births sampled yielded data on
• 10,688 children in wave 1 at 9 months of age
• 9,835 children in wave 2 at 24 months of age
• National Center for Education Statistics -
  http//nces.ed.gov/ecls/

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Methods Data Source (ELCS-B)

• What domains
• Childrens development and early life experiences
  in home, child care, preschool and kindergarten
• How
• Multi-source children, parents, child care
  providers, teachers, school administrators
• Multi-method observation, interview,
  phone-follow-up, self-administered questionnaires
  
• When
• Longitudinal
• Follows cohort of children born in 2001 from 9
  months to kindergarten entry.
• Four waves of data collection9-months, 2 years,
  preschool and kindergarten)

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Methods Analytic Measures

• Independent variable Quantity of child care
• Average of the number of hours in child care per
  week at 9-months and 2 years
• Dependent variable (for Aim 2) Quality of
  parenting at 2 years of age
• Home learning environment Overall score on
  frequency/week of reading, telling stories, and
  singing.
• Parenting behavior Mean sensitivity and
  responsiveness score
• Dependent variable (for Aim 3) - Child
  development at 2 years of age
• Mental ability score
• Child behavior score

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Methods Analytic Measures

• Control variables
• Child care Quality of child care, type of child
  care (only for subsample in child care)
• Child characteristics Age, race/ethnicity,
  infant temperament, birth order, birth weight,
  overall health status, gender
• Mother Depression, role satisfaction, education,
  employment status, physical health, country of
  origin
• Family Poverty status, urban/rural, geographic
  region, primary language, family type

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Methods Data Analysis

• Aim 1 Describe the ECLS-B population
• Univariate analysis for all analytic variables
  that involves estimating mean and percentage
  distributions, as appropriate, for both the whole
  sample of children and the subsample in child
  care
• Bivariate analysis to estimate zero-order
  associations for all analytic measures using a
  correlation matrix.

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Methods Data Analysis

• Aim 2 Main and moderating effects of quantity
  of child care on parenting.
• Four separate hierarchical multiple regressions
  (HRM).
• For each HRM, a series of blocks (or clusters) of
  variables sequentially added to the regression

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Methods Data Analysis

• Aim 2 Continued
• Example Five blocks of variables sequentially
  added to model 3 (subsample regressed on home
  learning environment)
• Block 1 - Independent variable
• ParHome ß0 ß1Hours
• Block 2 - Child-level factors
• ß2CAge ß3CRace ß4CTemp ß5COrder ß6CLBW
  ß7CHealth ß8CSex
• Block 3 - Maternal and family factors
• ß9MDep ß10MRole ß11MEdu ß12MEmploy
  ß13MHealth ß14MCoun ß15FRel ß16FPov
  ß17FUrban ß18FGeog ß19FLang ß20FType
• Block 4 - Other child care factors
• ß21CCQual1 ß22CCQual2 ß23CCQual3
  ß24CCType
• Block 5 - Interactions terms
• ß25(Hoursagentry) ß26(HoursMDep)
  ß27(HoursMRole) 28(HoursMEdu)
  ß29(HoursFPov)

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Methods Data Analysis

• Aim 3 Main, mediation, and moderating effects
  of quantity of child care on child development.
• Four separate hierarchical multiple regressions
  (HRM).
• For each HRM, 6 blocks (or clusters) of variables
  sequentially added to the model
• .

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Methods Data Analysis

• Aim 3 Continued
• Example Six blocks of variables sequentially
  added to model
• Block 1 - Independent variable
• Block 2 - Child-level factors
• Block 3 - Maternal and family factors
• Block 4 - Other child care factors
• Block 5 Mediating variables
• Block 6 - Interactions terms

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Methods Criteria for Assessing Main, Mediating
and Moderating Effects

• Main effects
• Control for (rule out) spuriousness, redundancy,
  alternative hypotheses and interaction effects.
• The F Statistic in the final regression model is
  statistically significant.
• Regression coefficient for X and Y is
  statistically significant.
• Mediating Effects
• For complete mediation, the regression
  coefficient for X and Y is zero.
• For partial mediation, the coefficient is reduced
  but not zero.
• Moderation
• Regression coefficient for an interaction term is
  significant.

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Strengths/Limitations

• Strengths
• Nationally representative
• Longitudinal design
• Many domains and measures
• Multiple sources and methods

• Limitations
• Significance vs. meaningfulness
• Exclusions Mothers under 15
• Correlational data
• Limited ability to control for quality of child
  care

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Implications of Study

• Help to resolve longstanding debate and look at
  some new parenting outcomes and moderating
  effects
• Inform development of
• Family support and parenting education programs
• Child care policies (Affordable, high quality
  care)
• Family leave/flexible work policies

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References

• Belsky, J. (1990). "Parental and Nonparental
  Child Care and Children's Socioemotional
  Development A Decade in Review." Journal of
  Marriage and the Family 52(4) 885-903.
• Bornstein, M. H. and C. S. Tamis-LeMonda (1989).
  "Maternal Responsiveness and Cognitive
  Development in Children." New Directions for
  Child Development(43) 49-61.
• Brooks-Gunn J., H., W., Waldfogel, J. (2002).
  "Maternal employment and child cognitive outcomes
  in the first three years of life the NICHD Study
  of Early Child Care." Child Dev 73(4) 1052-.
• Denton, K., West, J. (2004). Children born in
  2001 First results from the base year of the
  Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort
  (ECLS-B), National Center for Education
  Statistics 37.
• Kelly, J., Barnard, K. (2000). Assessment of
  parent-child interaction Implications for early
  intervention. Handbook of Early Childhood
  Intervention. J. Shonkoff, Meisels, S. Cambridge,
  Cambridge University Press 258-289.
• NICHD (1999). "Child Care and Mother-Child
  Interaction in the First 3 Years of Life."
  Developmental Psychology 35(6) 1399-1413.
• NICHD (2000). "Nonmaternal care and family
  factors in early development An overview of the
  NICHD Study of Early Child Care." Journal of
  Applied Developmental Psychology 22 457492-.of
  Early Child Care." Journal of Applied
  Developmental Psychology 22 457492-.