Child Care Decision Making Among the Working Poor: A Trajectory of Compromises

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore factors, whether barriers or opportunities, which contribute to child care selection among the working poor. Because of increasing pressures on families, service providers and policy makers, understanding the barriers and opportunities that families face in finding quality care for their children has become a growing focus of research (Vandenbroeck, De Visscher, Van Nuffel & Ferla, 2008). In order to best support families, the need to understand the current processes families go through to choose care arrangements for their children is paramount. Perhaps what is least understood about child care is how parents navigate the system to decide on comprehensive care while they are working. This navigation includes responding to both barriers and opportunities in the individual, family, community and larger social system (De Marco, 2008; Pungello & Kurtz-Costes, 1999; Seo, 2003).

Methods: In order to explore this topic, the grounded theory interviewing and data analysis technique was employed. Ten employed parents of children aged 0-5 who experienced searching for child care while making less than 300 percent of the FPL were recruited from a Midwestern state to participate in semi-structured formal interviews approximately 60 minutes in length. Recruitment locations included the following sites which offer services to the eligible population: the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, Parents as Teachers (PAT), and a student parent center at a nearby University.

Results: Open and axial coding, consistent with grounded theory methodology was applied to interview transcripts to identify salient categories and relationships between those categories to inform a theory about child care decision making among the working poor. In addition, a timeline of search processes and child care placements for ten families (14 children) were constructed and compared. Results revealed that the process of child care decision making can best be explained through a trajectory which involves a series of compromises made over time between parental beliefs, quality criteria desired, logistical needs, and perceptions about what is available in the child care market. Parents were often placed in a situation where they felt forced to compromise their desire for a stimulating learning environment to meet their needs for convenience, flexibility of care and a warm, loving environment.

Implications: These findings provide information to fill in a gap in knowledge about how different factors contribute to child care decision making over time. They provide insight into the opportunities that best help parents choose high quality child care, and the barriers that most hinder their abilities to place children in ideal care settings. This research can help early childhood service providers, administrators and policy makers reduce barriers and increase opportunities in families' environments to achieve better outcomes for children in or near poverty.