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 livesùcity or country, industrial state or agricultural state, and so forth. For most parents of in contemporary American society, the cost of adequate daycare is a major problem. No responsible parent wants to leave their children with inadequate care. Yet, many mothers must work outside of the home, in order to survive economicallyùwhether they are from middle or low income families, or whether they head single-parent families or are in two-parent families, and many cannot afford adequate child daycare. L...