Characteristics of home-based child care providers who offer non-standard hour care

Abstract

The past decade has seen a dramatic growth of non-standard work schedules in the workforce, leading to increasing demand for non-standard hour child care during evenings, nights, and weekends. Low-income families, less-educated parents, and single parents with young children report greater demand for non-standard hour care. Given the prevalence of non-standard hour care and the importance of quality child care, a better understanding of who provides non-standard hour care and how to support this sector is necessary. Home-based child care (HBCC) providers are the largest caregiving group serving children under age 6 during non-standard hours. Through secondary data analysis of the 2012 National Survey of Early Care and Education on listed home-based child care providers (n = 3476), decision tree analysis was used to predict whether listed HBCC providers offer non-standard hour care. Results indicated those providers who offered non-standard hour care are more likely to receive government subsidies, have lower educational levels, and serve fewer children. The overall accuracy of the decision tree model was 63%. The present study also examined the relationship between providers’ professional engagement and the total number of non-standard working hours (n = 880). The entire model presented a medium effect size. Providers who received home visitors and/or coaching tend to provide more hours of non-standard hour care. To better support HBCC providers in offering non-standard hour care, policy recommendations are presented.