Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Background and Purpose. Most of the research assessing maternal work characteristics and child care type and quality has been conducted in an urban context. Rural communities have received less research attention so less is known about child care use and quality in these communities. Rural areas have less access to formal child care and public transportation and families must often commute long distances for work, restricting child care options (e.g. Struthers & Bokemeier, 2000). Further, there is less center-based care and parents are more likely to use informal providers (e.g. Whitener, Duncan, & Weber, 2002). The primary purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between maternal work characteristics and child care type and quality in rural communities. The research questions are: 1) What characteristics predict utilization of a particular type of child care and 2) What characteristics are related to child care quality?

Methods. This paper uses data from the Family Life Project in rural North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Only biological mothers who were working and using child care were included (n=474). Hierarchical regression was used to examine which family characteristics, child characteristics, and maternal work characteristics predicted child care type and quality. Block one included family characteristics: maternal age, race/ethnicity, number of children, marital status, maternal education, state, poverty. Block two included child characteristics (gender and age). Block three included work conditions: supportive workplace, negative work-family spillover, five objective occupational measures, number of jobs, work hours, and shift.

Results. Most mothers were married (55.1%), resided in North Carolina (62.4%), were White, and had attended some college or more. Children averaged two years old. Mothers worked an average of 36 hours per week, mostly day shifts (65.8%). Most used non-center care (57.8%). In the multivariate analysis, North Carolina residents were more likely to use centers. High school dropouts were less likely to use centers (OR = 0.28). Mothers with more hazardous jobs were less likely to use centers (OR = 0.97). More jobs made center use less likely (OR = 0.40), while more work hours was related to center use (OR = 1.03). Quality of care was significantly higher for White children and for children whose mothers had more education and a more supportive workplace.

Conclusions and Implications. In rural communities, families are faced with difficult choices around work and child care, often having to accept less desirable jobs and fewer child care options. Consequently, rural parents often rely on less formal child care arrangements. These arrangements are often better able to accommodate long work hours, long commutes, and non-traditional hours. This was borne out by this study: more work hours and non-standard shifts predicted less center use. A supportive workplace was significantly related to better child care quality. This may be because these families have more flexibility to search for better care and may allow use of less conveniently located child care of higher quality than sites closer to work or home.