CHILDCARE: A CHALLENGE FOR AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES

CHILDCARE: A CHALLENGE FOR AMERICA'S WORKING FAMILIES

Major changes have occurred in the demographics of the American work force in the past three decades. In the mid-1960s, women workers accounted for approximately one-third of all Americans active in the work force. In the 1990s, this proportion has risen to at least one-half of the American work force (Miller, 1996). Thus, on the one hand the demand for child daycare is up significantly as a result of the increased numbers of women working who must also provide care for their children, while on the other hand the numbers of neighborhood women available to provide child daycare is down significantly because fewer women are at home during the day (Kraus & Chaudry, 1995).

In contemporary American society, it is necessary for all adults in a majority of the country's households to work outside of the home, if an acceptable standard of living is to be maintained (Haddam, 1996). When school-age children are present in these households, the problems faced by parents are exacerbated. As a point of fact, 60 percent of mothers with school-age children hold jobs outside of the home.

Adequate child daycare in the United States is expensive. Costs for such care range from approximately $2,600 per year to well over $15,000 per year (da Costa Nunez, 1995). The national average for child daycare is estimated at approximately $3,000 per year, dependent primarily on where one lives city or country, industrial state or agricultural

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e, those living in poverty, and so forth. While the motives of this element are usually praiseworthy, they usually provide fodder for those elements opposed to child daycare because the social activists all too often attempt to dismiss the significance of funding problems associated with parts of their agenda. There are other constituencies with significant interests in the child daycare issue. First, of course, there are the parents who must both work outside of the home and provide daycare for their children. Millions of these parents need help, and they are often more interested in obtaining some relief than they are in the often arcane policy arguments swirling around the issue. Second, there is American business. Most businesses in the 1990s are dependent on female workers. To retain skilled mothers as workers, businesses know that these mothers must have access to affordable child daycare services. All too often, however, private sector firms, particularly small businesses, find that they cannot support such benefits (Miller & Berde, 1996). In this business context, it may be stated with some merit that child daycare, as an issue, is significant for the future health of the American economy, and, thus, should be an

Category: Psychology - C