Employed Mothers and Family Day-Care Substitute Caregivers: A Comparative Analysis of Infant Care

Abstract

Despite dramatic increases in recent decades in the number of employed mothers with children under 3 years of age and the greater utilization of nonmaternal child-care services (particularly unregulated family day care), little is known about the nature and quality of care provided to these infants by their employed mothers and substitute caregivers. This study was conducted to provide a comparative assessment of maternal and nonmaternal infant caregiving practices in own-home and unregulated family day-care homes, respectively. 30 caregivers (10 employed mothers, 10 substitute caregivers, and 10 nonemployed mothers) were observed in interaction with 5-6-month-old infants using Yarrow, Rubenstein, and Pedersen's Home Environment and Mother-Infant Interaction scales. While no differences were observed in the caregiving of employed and nonemployed mothers, both of these groups exceeded the sitters in socially mediated stimulation, contingent responsiveness, positive affect, and overall level and variety of social stimulation. In addition, employed mothers provided more tactile-kinesthetic, visual, and auditory stimulation to their infants than did the substitute caregivers. However, no differences were found between the infants reared in the home and day-care settings in Bayley Mental and Psychomotor developmental abilities. Evidence implicated group size (total number of children) in the quality of caregiving in family day-care homes. The impact of daily separations and qualitatively different caregiving experiences on infants is discussed.