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Project Description

Families chosen based on mothers' employment plans, but not based on their child care plans. The goal was to have a sample of 60% full-time employment (>30 hours per week) in child's first year; 20% part-time employment (between 10-30 hours per week); and 20% staying at home (no more than 10 hours per week).

Project duration: Jan 1991 - Jan 2004

Sites studied include Little Rock, Arkansas
Orange County, California
Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Charlottesville, Virginia
Morganton, North Carolina
Seattle, Washington
Madison, Wisconsin

Sample Characteristics and Sites Studied

1,364 children and their families from diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds in the United States (76% white, 13% black, 6% Hispanic, 1% Asian, 4% other).

Mothers and their partners had a wide variety of educational attainment (10% less than 12th grade, 20% high school diploma, 33% had some college, 20% had college degree, 15% graduate of professional degree).

Recent Findings in Brief

07/01/03: NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development: Does Amount of Time Spent in Child Care Predict Socioemotional Adjustment During the Transition to Kindergarten?

Interim Descriptive/Analytical Findings

• The more time children spent in any of a variety of nonmaternal care arrangements across the first 4.5 years of life, the more externalizing problems and conflict with adults they manifested at 54 months of age and in kindergarten, as reported by mothers, caregivers, and teachers.
• Effects remained, for the most part, even when quality, type, and instability of child care were controlled, and when maternal sensitivity and other family background factors were taken into account.
• The magnitude of quantity of care effects were modest and smaller than those of maternal sensitivity and indicators of family socioeconomic status, though typically greater than those of other features of child care, maternal depression, and infant temperament. There was no apparent threshold for quantity effects.
• More time in care not only predicted problem behavior measured on a continuous scale in a dose-response pattern but also predicted at-risk (though not clinical) levels of problem behavior, as well as assertiveness, disobedience, and aggression.

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