Child Care Network Research Articles

Emiko Ochiai and Barbara Molony (Eds.) Asia's New Mothers: Crafting Gender Roles and Childcare Networks in East and Southeast Asian Societies

Emiko Ochiai and Barbara Molony (Eds.) Asia's New Mothers: Crafting Gender Roles and Childcare Networks in East and Southeast Asian Societies

Changes in Adult Child Caregiver Networks

Caregiving research has typically relied on cross-sectional data that focus on the primary caregiver. This approach neglects the dynamic and systemic character of caregiver networks. Our analyses addressed changes in adult child care networks over a 2-year period. The study relied on pooled data from Waves 1 through 5 of the Health and Retirement Study. Based on a matrix of specific adult child caregivers across two consecutive time points, we assessed changes in any adult child caregiver as well as in the primary adult child caregiver. More than half of all adult-child care networks, including more than one fourth of primary adult child caregivers, changed between waves. Gender composition of the caregiver network and availability of other adult child caregivers were particularly important for network change, but socioeconomic context, caregiver abilities and resources, and caregiver burden played a role as well. The results underline the need to shift caregiving research toward a dynamic life course and family systems perspective. They also raise concerns about the viability of informal care networks for future smaller birth cohorts and suggest that health care providers need to recognize and address coordination and potential conflicts among care network members.

Avaliação das campanhas para a eliminação da sífilis congênita, no município do Rio de Janeiro, a partir de um modelo teóricológico

OBJETIVOS: avaliar as campanhas de eliminação da sífilis congênita(SC), realizadas no município do Rio de Janeiro em 1999 e 2000, buscando identificar os acertos e falhas ocorridas durante e após a intervenção proposta. MÉTODOS: foi utilizado o modelo teórico-lógico como base para a avaliação de efetividade. RESULTADOS: após a montagem de um modelo lógico das campanhas, foram introduzidas pontuações onde foi possível obtê-las, e uma coluna final mostrando se a avaliação pôde ser realizada. Duas questões se destacaram nessa avaliação: a qualidade da assistência prestada pela rede municipal de saúde na atenção pré-natal e à saúde da criança exposta à transmissão vertical da sífilis, e a questão da vigilância epidemiológica da SC. CONCLUSÕES: o modelo pode contribuir para a construção de uma cultura de avaliação das secretarias, mostrando que somente quando os serviços de saúde adquirem a prática de olhar por dentro de seus programas é que podem tirar proveito de intervenções realizadas, dando o melhor uso possível para os recursos que dispõem para a saúde da população. No caso específico da sífilis, dar visibilidade para o agravo e reorganizar os serviços de assistência, de vigilância e de apoio diagnóstico são aspectos fundamentais, de baixo custo e com impacto positivo no desfecho perinatal.

Childcare Networks and the Well-Being of Mothers

The purpose of this analysis is to examine the effects of childcare network structure on the psychological well-being of mothers measured against “satisfaction of everyday life” and “child-rearing anxiety”. Childcare network in this analysis refers to a network that involves the father, kin, and non-kin. Using a representative sample of women with children of pre-school age in Japan, this study explores how the structure of childcare network affects the psychological well-being of mothers by using multiple linear-regression models. Findings indicate that the level of the mother' s well-being is highest when (i) the father' s participation in childcare is highly active, (ii) the childcare network outside the household is large, and (iii) the childcare network includes a good mixture of both kin and non-kin. As regards the childcare network involving extra-household actors, the composition and density of the network exhibit the characteristic of a U-shape curve in relation to the level of well-being : well-being is lowest in level when kin proportion and network density are either too low or too high. In other words, the level of well-being is high when kin proportion and network density are around mid level. In conclusion, this paper finds that active participation by fathers in childcare, together with a large childcare network structure that is mixed in composition and of mid-level density, are conditions most favorable in achieving a high level of psychological well-being in child-rearing mothers.

The Future of Pre‐Five Services in the UK

In the UK, as in the USA, early years services are characterized by the absence of any coherent national policy, low levels of provision, inegality of access, and fragmentation of services. Whereas there is a consensus that the State should provide for children deemed to be “in need”,there is less consensus over the provision of nursery education, and no perceived State obligation to provide daycare for children of working parents. The influence of the European Union and the work of the European Childcare Network in setting European targets for coherent development of services offers some possibility of change both in types and levels of provision. However, the example of Strathclyde illustrates that making changes at a local level without a national framework which addresses training and without a fiscal policy, is problematic; it further implies that at both a local and at a national level, process is as important as policy. The paper concludes by highlighting the areas for radical reform.

School-age child care in the European community

This article is primarily concerned with the care arrangements for children of primary school age while their parents are engaged in paid work. It is limited to routine, day-to-day care arrangements, ignoring the less frequent, irregular but important care arrangements that may need to be made when children are ill or when the normal care arrangement is temporarily unavailable. The article is also limited to the situation in the 12 member states of the European Community, and draws heavily on the recent review of child care in the EC undertaken by the European Commission's Childcare Network, established as part of the Commission's Second Equal Opportunities Action Project.

The Social Ecology and Early Parenting of Caucasian Adolescent Mothers

Social characteristics, maternal behaviors, and the home environments of Caucasian adolescent and nonadolescent mothers were investigated in a sample of 50 primiparous low- and middle-class women and their 4-month-old infants. The mothers were interviewed about their child-care network and about stressful life events that may have occurred since the infant's birth. The HOME inventory was completed and videotapes of 2 hours of home observations were coded to assess maternal proximity, verbalizations, activity, and physical contact with the infant. Interview data indicated that adolescent mothers relied more frequently on other teenagers and other network members for help in child care than nonadolescent mothers. In addition, they also received more frequent support from their mothers and less frequent help from their partner's and partner's mother and siblings than nonadolescent mothers. During the home visit, they were less verbal with their infants and scored significantly lower on the Responsiveness and Maternal Involvement subscales as well as on the total HOME inventory; these results were replicated on subgroups matched for socioeconomic status, emphasizing the unique social context and parenting practices of teenage mothers.