Parental work, child-care use and young children's cognitive outcomes

A new research paper examines whether a parent's work, and the resulting use of substitute child-care, is associated with a lower level of development of the skills that pre-school children need to start school.

The study showed that, for most pre-school children, the full-time work of their parents and the time children spend in substitute child-care have little or no association with lower levels of development of the skills needed to start school.

However, two groups of pre-school children appear to have better school readiness scores when there is a parent who works part-time hours, or who does not work outside the home. One group consisted of the pre-school children of mothers who had above-average parenting skills and levels of education. Likewise, children whose fathers possessed above-average education exhibited slightly higher levels of skill development if their fathers worked part-time.

The results appear to indicate that quantity of time spent in parent-child interaction, by itself, is not associated with decreased cognitive development of pre-school children. However, a combination of quantity and quality of the time spent in parent-child interaction appears to be related to whether pre-school children are intellectually prepared to start school.

In particular, the study points to reading as an important parent-child activity that is associated with higher school readiness scores among some pre-school children. Pre-school children who read, or are read to, on a daily basis, exhibit higher levels of skill development than children who do not read, or are not read to, every day. Children who read, or are read to, several times each day exhibit even higher levels of school readiness.

The analysis in this paper is based on arguments that parent-child interaction fosters the development of the skills that pre-school children need to start school successfully. These arguments hold that full-time labour market participation among parents often results in comparatively less time for parent-child interaction than in families with a stay-at-home parent.

Although the relationship is not strong, hours in substitute care are positively associated with better school readiness scores for pre-school children from higher income families. This finding might be because children in higher income families are exposed to a higher quality of substitute care. Family income is also associated with higher school readiness scores, independent of the number of hours that children spend in child-care. This may be because children in higher income families have access to greater resources, such as educational books and toys, as well as to a healthy and pleasant living environment.

The study also found that children of working single parents tend to spend more hours in substitute child-care than the children of dual-parent families. The most obvious explanation is that without a spouse in the home to assist in caring for the children, these parents are more likely to rely on substitute care.

Note: The analysis for this paper was conducted at the British Columbia Inter-university Research Data Centre, located at the University of British Columbia. The results are based on data from the 1994, 1996 and 1998 cycles of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). (As this analysis was conducted prior to the release of the re-calibration of NLSCY's survey weights, the point estimates reflected here are based on population estimates for 1994, 1996 and 1998.)

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 4450.

The research paper Parental work, child-care use and young children's cognitive outcomes (89-594-XIE2003001, free) is now available on Statistics Canada's website. From the home page, select Studies, then Research opportunities, Research Data Centres and Research papers.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Lynda Gagné (250-721-8063), University of Victoria, between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., Eastern Time.

For more information about the Research Data Centre program, contact Gustave Goldmann (613-951-1472), Research Data Centre program.