The Child Care Arrangements of Preschool‐Age Children in Immigrant Families in the United States
| Date | 01 March 2004 |
| Published date | 01 March 2004 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.0020-7985.2004.00274.x |
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.,
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© 2004 IOM
International Migration Vol. 42 (1) 2004
ISSN 0020-7985
* Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Massachusetts, USA.
The Child Care Arrangements of
Preschool-Age Children in Immigrant
Families in the United States
1
Peter D. Brandon*
ABSTRACT
This study examined the child care arrangements of children in immigrant
families. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation
(SIPP), the study found great diversity in the child care arrangements of
children according to their nativity status. Children in immigrant families,
especially those in low-income immigrant families, were found less likely to
use centre-based child care. Mexican, Asian, and other Hispanic children
are also less likely to use centre-based child care. Because quality centre-
based child care has been shown to benefit preschool-age children and
help prepare them for school, both scholastically and psychologically, less
use of centre-based child care among children in immigrant families
compared to children in non-immigrant families is a potentially troubling
finding. Public policies promoting greater access to and more use of centre-
based child care, especially for low-income immigrant families and two-
parent immigrant families, may make a significant difference to their
children’s long-term adaptation, and their children’s school readiness and
achievement.
INTRODUCTION
Today, the vast majority of America’s young children grow up in non-maternal
child care. According to the National Household Education Survey, 61 per cent
of children younger than age 4 were in regular child care in 1999, including
44 per cent of infants younger than age 1, 53 per cent of 1 year olds, and 57 per
cent of 2 year olds (National Research Council, 2000). Moreover, the US Bur-
66 Brandon
eau of the Census estimated that in 1994, 10.3 million children younger than age
5 were in child care while their mothers worked, including 1.7 million infants
younger than age 1 (US Bureau of the Census, 1997). Thus, even though the
family remains the child’s primary context in which early childhood develop-
ment unfolds, child care has become the complementary context where a child
establishes his or her identity, develops language, learns to interact, and comes
to understand rules and customs (National Research Council, 2000). And, for
most 4 year olds, child care provides them with their first opportunity to experi-
ence a school-like environment (Hofferth et al., 1998). These dramatic changes
in who rears and socializes America’s children have led the National Research
Council (2000) to conclude that use of child care has become the norm in
American society rather than the exception.
Unclear, however, is whether use of child care is the norm for children in immi-
grant families in the United States. Until this study, no national-level information
has depicted child care use among children in immigrant families and compared
their patterns of child care use with those of children in non-immigrant fam-
ilies.2 Despite this lack of knowledge, one in every five children in America
today is an immigrant or has at least one immigrant parent (National Research
Council, 1999). No group of children in America is growing faster than children
in immigrant families. Between 1990 and 1997, the number of children in immi-
grant families grew by 47 per cent compared with only 7 per cent for children
in non-immigrant families (National Research Council, 1999).
This study narrows this gap in our knowledge about child care use among
children in immigrant families. The central finding that low-income children of
immigrants are less likely to use centre-based care than their low-income counter-
parts in native families is important because child care can influence a child’s
early development and socialization and can ease his or her transition from home
to formal school life. Moreover, in addition to promoting the development of
children, centre-based care could help immigrants’ children integrate into Ameri-
can society as it is a principal setting possessing the social capital needed to
sustain the children through their adaptation to a new socio-cultural environ-
ment. Overall, this study draws attention to the early childhood experiences of
children in immigrant families, especially their interactions or lack thereof with
the American child care system.
BACKGROUND
This study of child care use among children in immigrant families addresses a
pressing need for more population-based research on children in immigrant families
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