Extending the theory of planned behavior to examine Chinese parents’ intention to use child care services for children under age 3

Abstract

Although grandparents' involvement in child rearing is widespread in China, an increasing number of young Chinese parents want to enroll their children in high-quality child care programs. Parents' selections of child care arrangements involve complex decision-making processes, resources and constraints. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was applied in the current study to create a conceptual model to examine the roles of parental attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, perceived quality and perceived risk on behavioral intention. The extended model was tested using data from a survey of parents of children aged 0–3 in China (N = 304). The results showed that the variance explained (R2 to intention) was 0.66 for the total sample, the variance explained (R2 to attitude) was 0.329 for the total sample and that four factors predicted parents intentions to enroll their children in child care: attitudes towards child care, subjective norms, behavioral control, and perceived quality. The attitudes of individuals were also found to be influenced by perceived quality. By extending the TPB, this study provides practical implications for the future development of child care services in the Chinese socio-cultural context.