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162 7 Using Kin for Child Care Embedment in the Socioeconomic Networks of Extended Families Lynet Uttal Child care arrangements are an essential element of parental employment. Patterns of usage of different types of child care arrangements have changed significantly in the past 30 years. Particularly noticeable is the diminishing use of relatives as the most common source of child care. Since 1958, the percentage of child care arrangements with relatives both inside and outside the child’s home made by employed mothers for their infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children has halved, from 42% to 21% of all child care arrangements in 1990. The only type of relative care that has not declined in the last 30 years is care by fathers, which remains steady at 11%. In contrast, the use of family day care homes and child care centers has more than tripled, from 17% in 1958 to 59% in 1990 (Hofferth, Brayfield, Deich, & Holcomb, 1991; Lajewski, 1959). Despite these trends, parents continue to express a strong preference for care by relatives, especially for their infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children. Yet the perception that relative care is an ideal substitute for parent care may exceed real preferences. Fewer parents actually use relative care than report a preference for it (Crispell, 1994). In a recent national child care survey, half of those who actually use relative care report that it is not their first choice of type of care; the preference for relative care was surpassed by the preference for “quality” child care (Hofferth et al., 1991). Clearly, the actual use of relative care is based on a variety of reasons other than that the care is perceived as the ideal substitute for parent care. Descriptive studies of maternal and family characteristics associated with a greater likelihood of the use of relatives for child care have found that the use and preference for relative care is positively associated with the belief that parents should be caring for their own children (Hertz & Ferguson, 1996; Kuhlthau & Mason, 1996), the close proximity of relatives (Benin & Keith, 1995; Jayakody, Chatters, & Taylor, 1993; Kuhlthau & Mason, 1996; Lamphere, Zavella, Gonzales, & Evans, 1993; Parish, Hao, & Hogan, 1991; Roschelle, 1997b), lower family incomes (Crispell, 1994; Gerson, 1993; Hofferth et al., 1991; Kuhlthau & Mason, 1996; Leibowitz, Waite, & Witsberger,© 1999 by the National Council on Family Relations, 3989 Central Ave. NE, Suite 550, Minneapolis , MN 55421. Reprinted by permission from the Journal of Marriage and the Family Vol. 61, No. 4, pp. 845-857. Using Kin for Childcare 163 1988; Stegelin & Frankel, 1993), lower maternal education (Folk, 1994; Hofferth et al., 1991), single parenthood (Folk, 1994; Oliker, 1995), families with younger children , especially under age 2 (Hofferth et al., 1991; Kuhlthau & Mason, 1996), and families with fewer children (Benin & Keith, 1995). Another common finding is that the rate of relative care is higher for black and Hispanic families than for white families (Benin & Keith, 1995; Folk, 1994; Hofferth et al, 1991). However, it is unclear if this finding holds when the mother’s employment status and the use of kin for regular, employment-related child care are controlled . Some studies find that employed mothers of color are more likely to use kin for child care than are white employed mothers (Folk, 1994; Keefe, 1996; Lamphere et al., 1993); others find that employed mothers of color are less likely to use relative care (Benin & Keith, 1995; Blau & Robins, 1991; Hayes, Palmer, & Zaslow, 1990; Roschelle, 1997a, 1997b), and yet other studies find that employed white women and women of color are more similar than dissimilar in their use of relative care (Kuhlthau & Mason, 1996). Race differences in extended family practices are of particular interest to researchers concerned about the quality of life and economic status of low-income racial ethnic families. (The conceptual term racial ethnic is used throughout this article to label racial and ethnic groups that have historically experienced racism and marginalized economic status in the United States. “Racial ethnic” is a commonly used concept in the race literature that is distinct from the concept “race” or “ethnicity” and does not include whites—though all people, including whites, have a racial and ethnic identity. It has been adopted as an alternative term to using “nonwhite” because nonwhite is a term that assumes a normative model—“white”—which locates people of color on the outside of this definition.) Underlying much of this research is the common assumption that the independence of nuclear families, especially economic , is the ideal. (For a discussion of this ideal of self-sufficiency, see Thorne, 1982...

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