Understanding the Child Care Decision-Making of Low-Income Working Families

1
Understanding the Child Care Decision-Making of
Low-Income Working Families
Ajay Chaudry, Urban Institute Julia R. Henly,
University of Chicago

• May 9, 2011 West Coast Poverty Center

2
Acknowledgements

• Collaboration and research support from
• Marcia Meyers
• Heather Sandstrom, Juan Pedroza, Alejandra Ros,
  Sara Rolen
• Generous funding from
• Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation,
  Administration for Children and Families, USDHHS
• Research Development Grant for Policy Research on
  U.S. Poverty, USDHHS
• Center on Early Childhood Research and the Joint
  Center for Poverty Research, University of
  Chicago

3
Why focus on the case of child care decisions in
particular?

• Majority of parents confront child care decisions
• Considerable public expenditures go toward child
  care
• 12 billion dollars, state and federal combined
  (Matthews, 2011)
• Child care decisions are complex
• Access and use remain highly stratified by family
  income and other demographic characteristics.
• Significant gaps in knowledge

4
Presentation draws from 3 Projects

• Conceptual Frameworks for Understanding Child
  Care Decision-Making (co-PIs Ajay Chaudry, Julia
  Henly, Marcia Meyers)
• Urban Institute Study of Child Care Choices of
  Low-Income Working Families (PI Ajay Chaudry)
• University of Chicago Study of Child Care Fit
  (PI Julia Henly)

5
Overview of Presentation

• Three conceptual models of decision making
• applied to child care decisions
• Urban Institute Study of Child Care Choices
• Unpacking parental preferences and decision
  factors
• Contexts and constraints shaping decisions
• Focus on immigrant families
• Study of Work Child Care Fit
• Different pathways into care
• Importance of Social Networks
• Implications
• For conceptual models and research
• For programs and policies

6
Conceptual Models of Decision-Making

• Consumer Choice Model
• Heuristics and Biases Model
• Social Network Model

7
Consumer Choice Model of Decision Making

• Also known by rational choice or economic choice
  model
• Notion that individuals relate their personal
  preferences to the set of alternatives they face
  by considering tradeoffs among the options
  relative to their preferences, and make a choice
  that maximizes their satisfaction.
• Choice models recognize that choices are subject
  to budget and time constraints Individuals make
  decisions about the type, quality, and quantity
  of a good or service to use subject to
  constrained optimization.
• Provide clear, well-structured, empirically
  testable predictions about decision outcomes,
  although less suited for understanding
  decision-making process
• Applied across a wide body of decision-making
  problems, with varying degrees of success (e.g.,
  Michapolous Robins, 2002 Blau, 2001 Blau
  Hagy, 1998 Holloway, Rambaud, Fuller,
  Eggers-Pierola, 1995 NICHD 2000, 2002)
• Choice models have shown to be empirically
  effective in explaining how price changes and
  family income may impact child care and
  employment decisions
• Less successful at explaining how other family
  factors influence choice, or how variations in
  quality matter.

8
Consumer Choice Model of Decision Making

• Strong assumptions in traditional economic choice
  model may not fit child care context and have
  been relaxed by many researchers coming from
  consumer choice perspective
• static and exogenous preferences some choice
  models allow for complex bundles of preferences
  (e.g., Akerlof 2005 Rabin 2000 )
• good or full information recognition of
  information asymmetries -- Akerlof Stiglitz),
• and individual nature of decisions recognition
  that child care decisions may be made jointly
  with other decisions and may involve more actors
  than the individual alone (e.g., Davis
  Connelly, 2005 Baum, 2002 Powell, 2002)
• Other conceptual models may be better designed to
  understand things such as the origin of
  preferences and their complexity how information
  is gathered and the contexts, cultures, and
  histories that may challenge individual, rational
  actor models.

9
Social Network Model

• A sociological network model of decision making
  considers how individual choices are mediated by
  social relationships (informal ties and
  organizational ties)
• Social networks are an important source of
  information, support,status, and normative
  influence (e.g., Granovetter, 1974 House,
  Umberson Landis, 1988, Lin, 2001)
• Network models usually assume individuals are
  instrumental and more-or-less rational in their
  approach to decision-making, however choices are
  shaped by social network characteristics and
  processes and goals may be group- as well as
  self-interested (Portes, 1998).
• Network models can be useful for understanding
  process (mediation) and group differences
  (moderating effects), providing predictions for
  how decisions may be affected by characteristics
  and quality of networks
• Networks can be opportunity enhancing or
  opportunity limiting depending on their
  characteristics (Briggs, 1998 House, Umberson,
  Landis, 1988).

10
Heuristics and Biases Framework

• Decision-making as studied by psychologists and
  behavioral economists is concerned with how
  normal psychological processes interact with
  social-contextual factors to influence behavior.
  
• According to this perspective, individuals are
  satisficers rather than optimizers who rely
  on heuristics cognitive short cuts to make
  decisions (i.e., Simon, 1957).
• In many cases, heuristics result in good and
  efficient decisions.
• But in other cases, heuristics result in
  less-optimal decisions, or in no decision (i.e.,
  we accept the default and dont search).
• Decisions are highly sensitive to the
  environment. Relatively minor changes in the
  environment can have large effects on choices.
  (Thaler Sunstein, 2008)
• Suggests malleable to policy intervention

11
Overview of Presentation

• Three conceptual models of decision making
• applied to child care decisions
• Urban Institute Study of Child Care Choices
• Unpacking parental preferences and decision
  factors
• Contexts and constraints shaping decisions
• Focus on immigrant families
• Study of Work Child Care Fit
• Different pathways into care
• Importance of Social Networks
• Implications
• For conceptual models
• For programs and policies

12
Urban Institute Study of Child Care Choices of
Low-Income Working Families

• Purpose of Study is to examine the child care
  decision making process of low-income, working
  parents within the context of their individual
  circumstances and community contexts, and to
  consider strategies that better support their
  efforts and offer choices that can make higher
  quality child care available and affordable to
  more families.

13
Study Research Questions

• What are parents preferences for child care and
  which factors ultimately influence (facilitate or
  constrain) parents child care choices among
  low-income working families?
• How does the process of choosing child care
  interact with several key contextual factors that
  can influence parents child care decisions,
  including employment contexts and early care and
  education supply, information, and related
  program policies in the community?
• How do some particular family characteristics
  influence child care decisions, and do the
  choices of some key sub-groups of low-income
  families differ in important ways from low-income
  families overall?
• Immigrant families
• English language learners
• Families whose children have health or other
  special needs

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Research Methods and Study Sample

• Two low-income communities with high immigrant
  concentrations in Providence, RI and Seattle, WA
• 86 low-income working families (43 in each site)
• below 250 poverty
• parent/primary caregiver works at least 20 hours
  per week
• child under age 5 in non-parental care
• Two rounds of in-depth qualitative interviews
  about 1 year apart
• Sample Characteristics
• 60 foreign-born (Dominican, Mexican, Vietnamese,
  Somali)
• 47 English language learners
• 48 single parent household
• Average total hours worked per week 33
• Average hourly wage 11.00
• 60 worked non-standard hours (beyond M-F
  8am-6pm)
• Average child age 31 months (SD 15) in
  Providence and 23 months (SD 14) in Seattle
• 29 families (34) received a child care subsidy

15
Type of Care Arrangements
Focal Child Age (years) Informal Relative Informal Non-relative Family Child Care Child Care Center, Head Start, Pre-K Total
lt 1 10 1 3 1 15
1 13 3 8 8 32
2 11 1 8 2 22
3 8 2 9 9 28
4 3 0 3 9 15
Total 45 7 31 29 112
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Analysis of Parents Preferences Decision
Factors for Current Care Arrangements

• Examined qualitative parent interview data for
  themes related to parental preferences (i.e.,
  what is important or ideal) and decision factors
  (i.e., what made parent choose particular care
  arrangement)
• Identified 17 preferences and 16 decision factors
• Four categories of themes characteristics of
  care setting, caregiver characteristics,
  availability and accessibility, and affordability
  of care

17
Parental Preferences

• Most significant preferences
• Activities and learning opportunities (61)
• Sensitive caregiving and positive relationships
  (52)
• Safe and trustworthy provider (49)
• Bilingual or native speaker (43)
• Relatives as caregivers (31)

18
Key Decision Factors

• Most significant decision factors
• Convenience of location, transportation (41)
• Cost of care (35)
• Relatives as caregivers (33)
• Positive relationship with caregiver (29)
• Hours of availability (26)

19

• The main thing is to find somebody with the
  hours that you need, the days that you need, a
  place that you can call in an emergency, that you
  can afford, and its sad that youve gotta choose
  your day care by a place that you can afford, but
  thats kinda what we went throughYou know we
  dont have a car. So we figure were going to
  have to bus it. If there was an emergency, we had
  to have it close to our jobThere was just so
  many things to take in and deal with and to find
  a good one.

20
Alignment of Parental Preferences Decision
Factors

• Parental preferences and decision factors do not
  always align
• Example of Strong Alignment Parents viewed
  having relatives as caregivers as important or
  ideal (preference) and parents chose to use
  relative care specifically because they wanted
  relatives to care for their children (decision
  factor)
• Example of Strong Misalignment The majority of
  parents (61) expressed the importance of
  activities and opportunities for learning only
  14 families explicitly stated they selected
  their current care arrangement because it
  provided learning activities, including
  opportunities to learn English.

21
Decision Factors by Child Age

• Relatively more important for infants and
  toddlers
• Relationships with providers
• Over 80 of families with children younger than
  one year
• Affordability
• Quality of physical environment (safety and
  cleanliness)
• Relatively more important for preschoolers
• Activities and learning opportunities
• Nutritious meals/ethnic foods

22
ECE Contexts and Constraints

• Availability and Affordability of Care Options
• Parents often described center-based care as
  limited in availability, restrictive in terms of
  age limits, too expensive, and not meeting their
  scheduling needs.
• Head Start and public prekindergarten were viewed
  as positive options, but many families did not
  qualify or were waitlisted, and the programs
  income limits were often described as too low.
• Head Starts half-day schedule made choices more
  challenging for parents needing full-day care.
• Some families who did not qualify for Head Start
  or child care subsidies described how they still
  could not afford child care described most often
  by married, dual-income parents.

23
ECE Contexts and Constraints

• Awareness of Care Options
• Most parents were aware of some child care
  opportunities available in their communities but
  were generally not well informed of many
  programs.
• Immigrant and ELL families were more aware of
  family child care than center-based child care
  options. ELL families and families with children
  with special needs often knew about Head Start.
• Almost all of the parents in the
  sampleespecially immigrants and ELLsrelied
  primarily on their personal social networks for
  information about child care and available public
  resources.
• Fewer families used more formal information
  sources for child care, such as CCRRs some
  found these agencies to be helpful in their
  searches, others found information to be outdated
  and unreliable.

24
Employment Contexts Constraints

• Parents faced multiple employment constraints
  that limited care options
• Limited employment opportunities and instability
  of work and income
• Low-wage work and lack of benefits
• Non-standard hours
• Hours of work and work schedules inconsistent
  with care options
• Many parents had non-standard schedules (beyond
  M-F 8am-6pm) or regularly shifting schedules.
• Centers opened too late or closed too early
  werent open on weekends.
• Head Start programs were half-day and required a
  second care arrangement.

25

• The good child care around here that I want to
  put her in, they start at 8 a.m. and I have to be
  at school at 7.  So we dont have very many
  options.
• I wish I had a little bit more flexibility with
  the hours, because with daycare, I cant find
  anything open late. So, thats the only thing. I
  dont get out til seven. Daycare closes at five.
  Its the one thing I wish they can do extend
  daycare hours.
• Not having a fixed schedule, especially for the
  past couple of months, its definitely hard
  because I dont know what Im doing. If my
  manager hasnt drawn up my schedule yet, I dont
  know what Im doing. If I had a child care
  service, Id be calling them up every day saying,
  you know, this is my different schedule, and next
  week itll be this different time.

26
Employment Contexts Constraints

• Jobs were very inflexible in terms of scheduling
  and time off.
• The majority of parents were in jobs that allowed
  them neither paid time off, vacation time, or
  sick leave. Many of their employers were
  inflexible regarding family and child care
  emergencies. Parents risked losing their jobs.
• Those with inflexibility with work discussed
  seeking more flexibility in child care.
• Transportation challenges long distances between
  home and child care and job locations a lack of
  personal vehicles and reliable public
  transportation.

27
Immigrant Families

• Overall, immigrant parents were influenced by
  many of the same factors as U.S.-born parents in
  making child care arrangements, and some
  additional factors.
• Preferences were shaped by unique experiences
  growing up in their country of origin and the
  type of care they received growing up.
• Less likely to have experienced non-parental care
  as a child themselves, and bring some different
  norms and expectations for child care.
• Some pointed out that the discipline and cultural
  practices that their children would be taught in
  their native country would be ideal, and this was
  something they looked for in a child care
  arrangement in the U.S.
• Parents settlement experiences, age of
  emigration, and acculturation in the U.S.
  influenced how much they knew about and
  considered child care opportunities.
• Immigrants placed a high reliance on social
  networks within the local immigrant community for
  information and access to child care resources.

28
Overview of Presentation

• Three conceptual models of decision making
• applied to child care decisions
• Urban Institute Study of Child Care Choices
• Unpacking parental preferences and decision
  factors
• Contexts and constraints shaping decisions
• Focus on immigrant families
• Study of Work Child Care Fit
• Different pathways into care
• Importance of Social Networks
• Implications
• For conceptual models
• For programs and policies

29
The Study of Work-Child Care Fit

• Qualitative study of 54 employed mothers of young
  children working in hourly jobs in the retail
  sector
• recruited from 6 employment sites 4 retail
  stores and 2 retail distribution centers.
• 2 in-depth interviews per employee (90 min.
  each)
• Demographically diverse sample
• 61.5 African American, 17.3 Latino, 21.2
  Non-Latino White
• 1/3 married or cohabiting, 1/3 single, 1/3
  extended household
• 90 with at least one child 5 or under (10 with
  1st or 2nd grader)
• Mean age of child 1.65 (SD1.28)
• Avg number of kids 1.85

30
Employment Characteristics of Sample

• Occupation
• Manual (27.8), Customer Service/Clerical
  (22.2), Cashier (16.7), Sales (25.9), Other
  (7.4)
• Job Status
• 59 full time, rest are part time, flex-time, or
  on-call all hourly jobs
• Low Wage and Earnings
• 7-14 per hour (mean 10.06, sd2.46)
• 45 have earnings below poverty line 95 below
  185 poverty line
• Nonstandard Work Schedules the Norm
• 24 majority hours outside daytime hours
• 63 weekend hours and/or majority hours outside
  daytime hours
• 28 have 3 start times a week 37 have 3 end
  times
• 50 receive schedule with one week or less notice
  (range 2 days to 4 weeks) with frequent changes

31
Child Care Characteristics of Sample

• Primary arrangement of youngest child
• Center/Pre-K 16.7 Family Child Care 20.4
  FFN 50 (grandmother 63) Father 5.6 School
  7.4
• 83 have secondary arrangements all center users
  have secondary arrangements.
• Most common strategy is to package care across
  multiple providers
• Cost of care
• No Expense 35.2 1-25 14.8 26-50 24.1
  51 25.9 (weekly)
• Mean 32.53 Median 14
• 27 of sample currently receives subsidy another
  16 used to be on subsidy but lost it due to
  earnings increase or administrative problem
• Number of hours with primary provider
• Less than 30 8.5 30-45 66 46 25.5

32
Analysis of Pathways

• Previous analyses with these data focused on
  employment and work schedule instability and
  parental strategies for managing work and
  caregiving (e.g., Henly, Shaefer, Waxman, 2006
  Henly Lambert, 2005).
• This re-analysis of the data examined child care
  search strategies, considering themes related to
  how parents found care, with particular attention
  to preferences, information, resources, and
  constraints

33
Pathways into Care

• No Search
• Family Norms/ Family Strategy
• Someone else decides
• Goes with past experience
• More-or-less active searching
• Short, serial searches the norm
• Satisficing strategy
• Need to accommodate multiple constraints
• ? About evenly split across the two groups

34
No active search Family Norms/Family Strategy

• Several participants described a taken for
  granted, tacitly understood agreement that
  relatives (usually grandmother) would provide
  care.
• its always kind of understood, an instinct
  (10) an automatic thing (176)
• We choose to try to raise them in the home until
  we think theyre ready for school (165)
• In other cases, it was less automatic, and more
  of a strategic decision to keep child care within
  the familysometimes for economic reasons
• " so Im like, my momma started coming around,
  she started watching him and stuff and I told her
  about the childcare subsidy and what she would
  be getting and so she like, that that sounds
  good, that help out with her rent, so" (45)
• Mom was off of work for awhile. Ah, she was
  diagnosed with sugar or whatever and her blood
  pressureAnd ah, she really didnt have no source
  of income coming in and stuff. And she was
  watching the kids, but I was paying her out of my
  check. I didnt have a subsidy then. But when
  I found out that your mother can watch themand
  get paid for it, thats when. It happened about a
  year ago. Thats how that came about. (94)

35
No active search Family Norms/Family Strategy

• Strong alignment between preferences and
  arrangement in family norm group more
  ambivalence in family strategy group
• Both 45 and 94 (prior page) reported preferring
  day care, but didnt seek it perhaps putting
  collective family interest over individual
  interest.
• Lack of trust of non-family members, especially
  for infants/toddlers
• Largely influenced by media and cultural
  histories sometimes personal experience but
  limited
• Norms dictating preference for family caregivers
  directed primarily at younger children, although
  not always
• Belief in family caregivers until children could
  talk, or until preschool
• Family norm/Family strategy group lived in
  extended household structures or very nearby
  family caregivers
• May be an intentional caregiving strategy or may
  operate the other way, i.e., greater availability
  and salience of kin increases use

36
No active search Someone else decides

• No search by participant because someone else
  either volunteered to take care of child or made
  the decision for parent it wasnt my decision
• Usually participants mother, sometimes babys
  father/husband decided
• All these arrangements are with relatives
• The result of strong preference for relative care
  by the person making the decision
• Respondent sometimes had additional information
  about alternatives, but did not seriously
  consider them
• Several in this group overlap with Family norm/
  Family strategy group
• Alignment of arrangement with participants
  preferences varied see quotes next page

37

• Rs Mom Decides, Aligned with Rs Preference
  (190)
• IW How did you decide that your mom would be
  taking care of the kids?
• R Oh my mom decided it. Shes not fond of
  other people that are not your family members
  taking care of kids. She likes to see the news a
  lot. At nighttime, and she sees that caretakers
  kill kids, and they hit kids, and they abuse.
  You know, they do all these crazy things to
  kids.She says, you know, Nobodys going to take
  care of my grandkids. Theyre too small. They
  cant defend themselves, they cant tell us what
  happens to them. I1 Right. She says, Its
  not happening. She says, Id rather take care
  of them. Im going to take care of them.
• ? Although Mom decided, it was consistent with
  Rs preferences
• Boyfriend Decides, Against Rs Preference (104)
• IW Did youdid you consider any other options?
  Son is cared for by Rs mother
• R I did. I wanted to put him in daycarebut,
  my boyfriend didnt want to he still doesnt
  want to(IW I see) but ah, I really do want to
  put him in daycare because my mother wants to get
  a job, she wants to work and help my father
  out(I1 I see) but, he doesnt want me to put
  my son in daycare, so

38
No active search Goes with past experience

• Families with older children, often reported
  going with an arrangement they had already used,
  rather than searching
• These arrangements varied in type of care (e.g.,
  family child care center YMCA babysitter
  relatives)
• Familiarity and convenience seemed to drive
  decision
• Knew a lot about the arrangement already reduced
  need to seek out more info
• Convenient when other kids also in care
• Decision did not always align with Rs
  preferences, but satisficing
• Some voiced reservations about the choice,
  concerns about the arrangement, or indicated
  plans to move child in the future.

39

• IW how you decided to send him to Kiddie Care
  child care center?
• R Because ah, Alexandra older daughter
  had been at that center since she was fifteen
  months old. So he was actually on the waiting
  list when I was pregnant with him. /// so I put
  him on the waiting list. And I pressed the
  issue, and pressed the issue, and pressed the
  issue for them to let him start. And they
  finally let him start when he was 6 mos. old.
  ///
• IW And did you have, were you considering
  other options or that was that the only thing you
  considered?
• R That was the only thing I considered.
• IW Okay. Cause it was convenient?
• R It was convenient. Convenient. I didnt
  have to go over here to drop her off, there to
  drop him off. With this arrangement I drop off
  everybody here and go on about my way. (70)
• R notes that when older daughter graduates from
  center, she is going to find a different center
  for her son that is closer to her home or her
  work. She doesnt like the distance of the
  current center and she has some safety concerns
  as well.

40
More-or-less active searching

• The majority of respondents reported at least
  some search prior to accepting an arrangement
• Searches were often (not always) restricted to
  one child care sector (i.e., R was looking for a
  pre-school for their 3 year old)
• Searches varied in their deliberativeness and
  scrutiny of alternatives

41
More-or-less active searching

• Example of more intentional search, scrutinizing
  option (178)
• After several years of respondents mother
  watching son, when it was time to seek a
  kindergarten she describes the following search,
  noting that it was hard to find a program that
  met her care needs
• R I mean, yes I did search and, especially
  when he first turned five. I started looking
  into different schools and different kindergarten
  programs, which was hard because most of them
  were ah, for just two or three hours a day. And
  Im like, Okay, thats really going to be hard
  because I have to have someone, you know,
  dropping him off and picking him up in the
  mornings? And when I found the full-day
  program, then I started thinking, Okay, thats a
  long time for him to be there, but.
• IW Right.
• R Ah, I got a lot of referrals to this one
  school. So, I checked it out, I went, I did
  visits, ah, they gave me a tour, I met most of
  the staff there, and I liked it. (178)

42
More-or-less active searching

• Example of search focused primarily on cost,
  within type (179)
• R I was shoppin' around for different schools,
  plus price range, and Saint Pauls was the best
  choice for me as far as child care.
• IW And, um, how did you find out about St.
  Pauls? I mean...
• R Well Aunts grandson went to St.
  Pauls, so...
• IW Okay, did you consider other schools
  or...?
• R Well yeah. For one the price wasn't--it
  was too much as far as the extended care. One of
  the problems was the tuition, it was the child
  care half of the school and whatever. I1
  Right. Yeah. 'Cause they vary from school to
  school. One school may be, uh, eighty dollars a
  month, one school was two-hundred dollars, one
  was two-eighty, I was like, no. I can't pay that.
  
• IW So you settled on this partly because it
  was more affordable, or...?
• R Right.

43
More-or-less active searching Very restricted
searches the norm

• Number of alternatives considered were extremely
  limited
• Of 21 searches for which we could determine the
  number of alternatives
• 10 considered ONE option (maybe non-searchers?)
  
• 2 considered TWO options
• 9 considered MULTIPLE options
• Short searchers relied heavily on informal
  referrals
• A problem with a previous arrangement was
  precursor for most short searchers, creating
  significant time pressure to find new care

44
More-or-less active searching Extended searches

• Rather than increasing their choice set,
  respondents who described conducting extended
  searches were often still left with one or no
  choice.
• Searches tended to be serial By far the most
  common search strategy was to identify one
  possible provider, determine if it would work,
  and if not, continue to search until the next
  provider was found.
• Alternatives not viable because cost, childs
  age, location, schedule, full/wait list
• 4 of 9 extended searchers ended up with an
  arrangement that wasnt even found through their
  search.
• In three cases, a chance encounter with someone
  who knew about an opening and in one case, Rs
  mom found the arrangement for her.

45

• IW How did you find out about Ms. Parker, how,
  why did you decide to
• R My mother, she um, she found her, she
  told me about her.
• IW Howd she find her?
• R CHUCKLE I dont even know how she found
  her, she just came INAUDIBLE and told me she
  found um daycare for him and that she set up an
  interview.
• IW Had she been looking for you? Did you
  know that shed been looking?
• R No, she didnt tell me, and um
• IW Had you been looking for day care?
• R Yeah, I had looked before. The day cares
  that I was um looking at, they wanted kids that
  was potty trained and my son isnt potty trained
  yet, he just turned one.
• IW Ok, so she, so she found this for you,
  and did she know Ms. Parker? Like was it someone
  she knew?
• R She didnt know her personally but
  someone she knew knew her and told her about her
  about . .( IW Ok, ok.) And she called and set
  up an interview with her, we went over there...
  and I liked her, it was nice, so she asked me
  when I wanted to start and I told her the
  following Monday, (116)

46

• Fortuitous encounter in beauty salon (174)
• Respondent met her boyfriends mother in the
  beauty parlor and was discussing her problem
  finding a preschool for her daughter. By chance,
  a kindergarten teacher who her boyfriends mother
  knew was in the beauty salon and overheard the
  conversation
• R She boyfriends mother hadnt, actually she
  hadnt been to the shop in almost a year... (IW
  I see.) and it just so happened that
  particular day, after Ive been out all day and I
  was actually running late for my appointment, I
  got there and she was there and I was talking to
  her about, Oh, what am I gonna do? Its been so
  hard. Everybodys got a waiting list. All the
  good schools in the area, you gotta go through
  testing and this, that, and the other, and the
  kindergarten teacher is like, Well, how old is
  she? And I was telling her. She said, Well we
  have a Preschool Program at my school, but let me
  talk to the Pre-K Teacher to see when the testing
  are setup. So she called me up the very next
  day, Testing is this week, you gotta get down
  here before Friday. 

47
Searches as Satisficing

• Searches often reflected Simons notion of
  satisficing.
• Strategies were accommodations reflecting
  good-enough rather than optimal decisions, given
  limited information and a constrained environment

48
Multiple contexts constraining or enabling
response to care needs
49
Social Networks

• Regardless of the pathway followed, social
  networks proved to be instrumental in the search
  process
• Referrals Family and friends were by far the
  most frequent source for learning about
  providers.
• Only 4 respondents relied on formal institutions
  for information about child care arrangements,
  with 3 obtaining information from child care
  centers and 1 from both a child care center and a
  public program.
• But referrals did not necessarily come from close
  network ties often fairly casual acquaintances
  (weak ties)
• Informal networks and formal institutions were
  both important sources of information about child
  care subsidies.
• 8 respondents reported learning about the child
  care subsidy program from someone in their
  informal network 9 from another public program,
  child care center, or a home-based provider.

50
Social Networks

• Family and friends often helped negotiate the
  arrangement
• connected respondent to the provider, brought her
  to the arrangement to observe and interview with
  the director, vouched for her, and so on.
• Family and friends were providers themselves
• 50 of the sample used family, friend, or
  neighbor care as a primary arrangement and almost
  all used these individuals as secondary
  arrangements

51
Why are social networks so important to the
search process?

• Social network members are more immediately
  accessible than formal information and referral
  sources.
• Embedded in the contexts (work, school, family,
  etc) that parents are trying to negotiate and
  therefore may better understand what parents
  need.
• Alternative sources of information are often
  elusive
• Social network members are credible sources to
  parents, and parents seem to believe in the
  trustworthiness of an arrangement/provider
  recommended by a network member.
• And ah, my aunt had her son in there
  center. So, shes like, Its good! They have
  patience! You can trust them. And ah, Okay!

52
Overview of Presentation

• Three conceptual models of decision making
• applied to child care decisions
• Urban Institute Study of Child Care Choices
• Unpacking parental preferences and decision
  factors
• Contexts and constraints shaping decisions
• Focus on immigrant families
• Study of Work Child Care Fit
• Different pathways into care
• Importance of Social Networks
• Implications
• For conceptual models
• For programs and policies

53
Accommodation Perspective

• Emphasizes constrained nature of decisions
• Decisions accommodate market, family, and social
  realities (Meyers Jordan, 2006)
• Attention to behavior in context
• Preferences interact with constraints, and change
  over time and context
• Not necessarily stable or exogenous
• Information is always partial and comes from
  multiple sources, but especially social networks
• Social networks are critical to accommodation
  model, as they are the link between environment
  and individual
• In addition to providing information, they are
  important sources of influence and shape how
  parents interpret information and options

54
Applying the accommodation model to child care

• In a conventional rational choice model the
  search process is conceptualized as deliberative
  and intentional, whereby individuals consider the
  various tradeoffs of a set of alternatives, and
  selects the best choice.
• In contrast, the accommodation model assumes that
  the search process varies in intentionality and
  deliberativeness due to
• Cognitive limitations Heuristic processing and
  short cuts are fundamental to human decision
  making
• Well-learned patterns of behavior Social norms,
  and the social networks that create and reinforce
  them, are powerful contributors to information,
  preferences, and decisions, and can significantly
  reduce the perceived need for deliberative
  searches.
• Thus, when navigating the complexities of the
  child care search, the process gets simplified as
  a result of normal psychological processes and
  help from the social messages reinforced in our
  social environment
• Shortening search efforts and lessening their
  reflective, deliberative quality
• Yet, individuals are understood as having agency,
  not simply creatures of habit or of their
  environment.
• The extent of agency will vary with individual
  characteristics, context, and circumstance

55
Policy Implications

• Many challenges low-income families face in
  arranging child care are due to tight constraints
  on choices related to supply, information, and
  access to subsidies.
• This implies that it is hard to change care
  choices without changing these care constraints,
  and expanding, integrating, and targeting ECE
  resources to increase the availability of
  affordable care options in low-income
  communities.
• Expand child care subsidy funding to guaranteed
  child care assistance for low-income working
  families with young children.
• Increase and shift more Head Start resources to
  lowest income communities expand program to
  require full-day and extended hours care options.
• Strategically integrate early childhood resources
  to provide a continuum of child care
  opportunities from ages birth to five that meets
  families needs and preferences.
• Support development of supply to match unmet
  needs with contracts with child care centers that
  offer a broader array of hours.
• Target these efforts where the supply and
  integration of services is most limited.

56
Policy Implications

• Increase consumer awareness and access to child
  care services
• Support information campaigns to educate parents
  on child care and resources that are targeted and
  involve social network members and consistent
  with network values and norms in the community.
• Ease access to early childhood services with
  community-based enrollment, simplified common
  applications, and streamlined eligibility.
• Make preferred options defaults by coupling
  subsidy access with opportunities for information
  and enrollment to high-quality care opportunities
• Support community agencies to provide parents
  with easy-to-access information about
  availability of local care providers,
  eligibility, and enrollment opportunities for all
  publicly supported early care and education
  programs.
• Ensure quality of child care options in
  low-income communities.
• Require states to develop strong, externally
  validated quality rating and improvement systems
  (QRIS) for all forms of subsidized child care.

57
Implications for Future Research

• How we conceptualize child care decision-making
  has implications for how we design research
  studies to understand care choices, how parents
  consider quality in care decisions, and how
  public resources may or may not support care
  opportunities for low-income families.
• Understanding individual decisions within social
  contexts and the role of social networks in child
  care choices.
• Evaluate efforts to overcome information
  constraints what is available to families, how
  do they access it and use it, and how can it be
  improved?
• Using mixed methods approaches to develop
  insights on the interactions between family, work
  and social processes within larger population
  studies.. Use longitudinal designs to examine
  transitions and timings of decisions.