Document 75: "Child Care," in Susanna Downie, Decade of Achievement: 1977-1987: A Report on a Survey Based on the National Plan of Action for Women (Washington, D.C.: National Women's Conference Committee, 1988), pp. 22-24.
p. 22
CHILD CARE
NATIONAL PLAN GOALS:
•comprehensive, voluntary, flexible-hour, bias-free, non-sexist, quality child care and developmental programs • legislation and public funding for these programs • low-cost, ability-to-pay fee schedules and parent participation wherever possible • special provision for rural and migrant worker families • child care programs in collective bargaining agreements • education for parenthood programs by local and State school systems • city, county and state networks for information on child care, referrals, and follow-up evaluations of all listed care-givers.
The problem is more or less as stated in the 1986 Update. In 1985, at least 33.5 million children under 18 had mothers who work outside the home, 6 million more than in 1975. This figure is expected to increase, as the "baby boom" generation moves through its prime child-bearing years, to 34.4 million by 1995. Moreover, mothers with increasingly younger children are entering the workforce. 48% of women with children under one year old were working in 1985, up from 31% in 1975. By 1990, an estimated 12 million children will need day care. By conservative estimates, in 1986, there were 7 million children under age 13 who care for themselves for at least part of every day, while parents work. The need for affordable child care everywhere in the U.S. is indeed reaching crisis proportions, and this is a long term trend.
And publicly funded child care is cost effective. A 1982 Census Bureau survey found that 45% of non-working single mothers would work if child care were affordable and available. An Ohio study found that $2000 per year of state money spent on child care (per family), saved $6000 per year in public assistance for the parent who, without the child care, would have had to quit work.
Although expenses for child care vary with the age of the child, the annual cost for one year of child care was equivalent to 30% of the median family income in 1984, compared with about 11% in 1964.
Yet Federal funds (Title XX Block Grant money, and Dependent Care Tax Credits), which hardly made a dent in the problem, have been cut back or eliminated since 1981. In 1986, 23 states still offered Title XX funds for child care, but at a lower rate than in 1981. Moreover, the U.S. lags far behind all its European allies (expect Britain) in dealing intelligently with this problem.
Though the problem of affordable quality child-care for everyone who needs it is a long way from being solved, and is actually worsening, the last decade has seen a great deal of activity and increasing attention to this issue. One culmination of that activity, is "ABC":
There is now ready for Congress a comprehensive child care package of legislation called "A Better Chance", or ABC. It is backed by The Alliance for Better Child Care, a coalition of about 85 organizations, including unions, religious groups, women's groups, child welfare organizations, and public policy organizations. ABC covers all facets of child care: day care, working parents, child care options, federal-state partnership arrangements; its goal is to make affordable high-quality child care available to working parents. It calls for $2.5 billion first year investment, to provide states with funds to offer child care assistance to working families earning less than 115% of state median income.
The Children's Defense Fund, founded in 1975, has divisions for Public Affairs, Child Welfare & Mental Health, and Child Care. They have taken a leadership role in the push for comprehensive federal child care legislation. Helen Blank and Amy Wilkins of the Children's Defense Fund are coordinating day-to-day advocacy activity for ABC in Congress, and The Alliance can be reached through CDF. Grassroots support is being organized by Alliance groups, which have begun to launch State ABC Alliances in 31 states.
Family Day Care providers are mostly women who
provide child care for small numbers of children (usually 6 or less) in their
homes. A network of people concerned about or providing family day care was
established by The Children's Foundation in 1978. In 1981, the network
became independent and restructured itself as The National Association for
Family Day Care; it currently has over 600 members. The 1987 National
Conference (their third) featured such workshops as "Time Management:
Organizing Your Day Care Day", "Working with Difficult Parents", "Feeding Picky
Eaters", "Developing a Management Style that Works for You", and "Getting your
Newsletter Ready for the Printer", as well as workshops on the details of
record-keeping, legal issues, and running child care as a business. Sandy
Gellert, President of NAFDC, observes that the consciousness level of the
general public is now increasing at a faster rate than in previous years.
People are more aware of the crisis proportions of the problem and the need for
collaboration between government and corporations. She says Real Estate
p. 23
A national survey of family day care providers in 1986 found that insurance was generally either not available at all or was not affordable. A new option called the National Care Provider Insurance Group Purchase Plan, sponsored by NAFDC and offered by BMF Marketing Insurance Services is now available. The national program is an expansion of one that has been successful in California for two years, offers broad coverage, including legal defense, and is very affordable (for more info, contact NAFDC).
WOMEN'S WORK=LOW PAY
The low compensation for almost any kind of child care work is one of the biggest structural problems in this issue area. In 1985, 97% of child care workers were women, with an estimated total of 2 million workers, 87% of whom earned less than minimum wage. Women who are well qualified and want to do the work they find they cant live on what they make, so they leave, "in droves", according to Carol Pemberton of The Child Care Employee Project. For child care workers, the turnover rate averaged 41.7% in 1980. For other occupations, the rate averages around 20%. Stressful working conditions is another reason workers leave.
The Child Care Employee Project (CCEP) was founded in 1977, by child care workers, to improve the wages, status, and working conditions of the child care profession. In addition to their excellent literature, they produce a T-shirt that says "Rights, Raises, Respect!", CCEP tracks pay scales for child care workers, but finds that Bureau of Labor estimates and figures are misleading because they lump together family daycare providers, workers in private child care businesses, and pre-K teachers in public school systems.
In 1986, the median full time annual pay for the home-based workers was $4700. For the workers outside the home it was $9400, and for the public school system employees it was $14,000. From what data is available, it appears that child care workers have lost ground in the last 10 years, their wages increasing a little but at less than the rate of inflation. Only about 20,000 out of an estimated 1 million center-based child care workers are unionized. In centers where workers are unionized, wages are higher.
A National Committee on Pay Equity study found that child care workers were the 2nd most underpaid workers in America (after clergy, who ranked first.) A study in Wisconsin found that a large percentage of child care workers have second jobs in order to make ends meet.
Child-Care-For-Profit, led by Kinder Care Learning Centers, is doing fine, however, reporting earnings of $33 million in 1986. But 3/4 of Kinder Care workers start at minimum wage, and Kinder Care has located more of its centers in Southern states, where regulations of staff-child ratios are more lax and it's cheaper to run a child care center.
CCEP will do a nationwide 18-month study of quality indicators. CCEP has just received funding to do an 18 month study in five urban areas to try to come up with more accurate statistics than Bureau of Labor stats. They will do an analysis of quality indicators – the relation between pay, working conditions, and quality of child care. Pemberton points out that raising standards without raising pay will not work. It is necessary to do both simultaneously, and until there is a strong public committment to subsidize quality child care, only the wealthy will be able to afford it.
WORKSITE CHILDCARE:
Worksite child care in the U.S. began in 1971, with
Stride Rite Shoes (Boston area). As of 1986, there are 3000 companies that help
employees with child care needs, a four-fold increase just since 1983. Not
all these companies actually provide child care facilities, and there are
millions of businesses that have taken no action. But AT&T (no less) recently
funded a study which called child care a "sound investment" for employers – it
aids recruitment and retention and lowers absenteeism. This is not exactly
news, but it is progress when a corporate giant wakes up to it. Worksite
childcare is a positive step wherever it is taken, but the majority of American
workers work in companies that are too
p. 24
Some states have taken progressive steps, and state legislation, though mostly piecemeal (except for Massachusetts), is beginning to address the issues. One of the pioneers among states, California established a state-funded Child Care Resource and Referral Network in 1975, which now encompasses all 58 counties, providing information and referrals to parents, and technical assistance to providers, legislators and the general public. In 1987, San Francisco began requiring developers to include day care centers in new structures (including new hotels) or pay $1 per square foot into the city's fund for construction of day care facilities.
States and cities have had to be pushed, sometimes quite hard, into taking progressive steps. AFSCME is the leader, among unions, in negotiating employee contracts with good child care provisions. AFSCME membership is more than 50% female, and the initiative for many of the good child care arrangements that are now in place came from the Local women, usually supported by local women's groups, and frequently in cooperation with other unions:
••AFSCME Local 1000 and Council 82, in New York (state) negotiated contracts which have now resulted in 25 state workplaces offering worksite child care, serving a total of 1000 children. The pilot center, in Manhattan, opened in 1979.
••In Denver, Colorado, in 1984, five AFSCME Local 158 women began organizing to get child care for city employees. With support from local women's groups, and after a lot of patient work with city officials, their efforts paid off, in 1987, with the opening of a day care center on city property. City employees can also elect to pay for other locally provided child care with pre-tax dollars.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is another union that negotiates good child care provisions for its members.
••In Boston, SEIU Local 285 Executive Director Nancy Mills is a leader in a coalition of 11 unions which have adopted a "blitz" strategy (1987), putting child care on the bargaining table in dozens of contract negotiations throughout the city.
••52 pre-schoolers (age 2 to 5), children of state employees represented by SEIU, now enjoy day care at The Poppy Patch, the new facility in their parents office building in Sacramento. The Poppy Patch is open from 5:45am to 5:30pm, and is now in its second year. The state has funded 12 more centers like The Poppy Patch, and more are being developed.
The most comprehensive state action on child care is in Massachusetts, which launched the Governor's Day Care Partnership Initiative in 1986. The Initiative came about after at least six years of organizing and lobbying by the (Mass.) Day Care Coalition. Working with its employees, unions, businesses, schools, and the Coalition, Massachusetts has increased the supply of daycare by 15,000 slots, 13,000 of which are for children of low-income parents. The wages of daycare workers have increased 32% (those employed under state contract) and 41% (family day care workers). Massachusetts budgeted $28m for day care in 1987.
With states and municipalities (and their unions) leading the way, child care advocates will have an increasingly rich array of model programs and practical information to use in their work with legislators and corporations.
— Susanna Downie, with help
from all the resources listed below, and a special thanks to Happy Fernadez, Professor of
Child Advocacy and Child Care Systems at Temple University.
RESOURCES:
Children's Defense Fund, 122 C Street, NW, Washington DC 20001. (202) 628-8787. Information on Federal and State legislation and policy.
Child Care Employee Project (CCEP), PO Box 5603, Berkeley CA 94705. (415) 653-9889. Newsletter, information sheets, booklets, free catalogue.
National Association for Family Day Care, P.O. Box 71268, Murray UT 84107. (newsletter). Sandy Gellert, Pres., (215) 782-8053. HQ: NAFDC 815 15th St. NW Suite 928, Washington DC 20005.
The Conference Board, 845 3rd Ave., New York NY 10022, (212) 759-0900. Information on employer-sponsored child care. Non-profit business research, started a division on Work and Family Information in 1983.
The National Commission on Working Women, 1325 G. St. NW Lower Level. Washington DC 20005. (202) 737-5764. Good Fact Sheets on Child Care.
American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, 1625 L St. NW, Washington DC 20036. (202) 452-4800. Joyce Long, Co-ordinator for Child Care Policy, in the Women's Rights Community Action Dept.
Service Employees International Union, 1313 L St. NW, Washington DC 20005. (202) 898-3200.
Massachusetts: Governor's Day Care Initiative, for info call: Ginny Freeman, Human Services Committee of the MA House: (617) 722-2140.
PUBLICATIONS:
•Child Care in a Family Setting: A Comprehensive Guide to Family Day Care, A training tool and text book. Recommended by NAFDC, no author listed.
•ARGUS, the journal for family day care professionals, Box 15146, Atlanta GA 30333, $18 yr.
•The 1987 Handbook of Associations and Other Groups (Newly revised), from The Children's Foundation, 815 15th St. NW Suite 928, Washington DC 20005.
•From CCEP: Managing the Media Maze:: A Resource Guide for Child Care Advocates. $3. Comparable Worth: Questions and Answers for Child Care Staff. $3. Beyond Just Working With Kids: Preparing Early Childhood Teachers to Advocate for Themselves and Others. $4.
CAREER AND CHILD CARE CHOICES / Philadelphia PA
One model grassroots effort is CHOICE, an advocacy, referral, community education, and training program founded in 1971. Their Hotline, in operation since 1983, handles 5000 calls a year from people needing child care. They also maintain a data bank on providers, support groups, regulations etc. and provide a data service to policy planners and corporations. 10 corporations in a five-county area (around Phila.) contract with them for recruitment and training of child care workers. In 1986, they received a $700,000 grant from the Wm. Penn Foundation to identify, train and support women who want to open day care businesses. The program, a cooperative venture between Temple University, the Delaware Valley Child Care Council, Women in Transition, and CHOICE, is called Career and Child Care Choices, and emphasizes empowerment of women, with a strong career counselling focus, training the women in how to build child care into a business that pays a living wage. CHOICE/Child Care Choices, attn: MaryAnn Mesure, 125 South 9th St. Suite 603, Philadelphia PA 19107. (215) 592-7644.
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