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Brown-Lyons, Melanie Robertson, Anne Layzer, Jean |
Kith and Kin - Informal Child Care: Highlights from Recent Research Report, New York NY: National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University, May 2001. Also: http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/kithkin.html Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) Keyword(s): Child Care; Preschool Children; Transitional Programs; Welfare Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. OVERVIEW Over the last four decades, the steady movement of women with young children into the labor force has been accompanied by a vastly increased use of out-of-home care arrangements for the young children of these working parents. While many children receive care in licensed child care centers, preschools, or licensed family child care homes, a good deal of child care takes place in settings that are, for the most part, not regulated. This type of child care is referred to as "informal" or "kith and kin" care. These terms include care provided by grandmothers, aunts, and other relatives of the child, as well as care by friends and neighbors. They may or may not be legally exempt from state licensing requirements, depending on the state and the specific circumstances. Although these may be the oldest forms of child care, and despite widespread use, kith and kin child care received very little attention from either researchers or policymakers until the late 1980s, when states were required to allow the use of federal subsidies for all legal forms of child care, rather than restrict their use to licensed providers. The passage of welfare reform in 1996 raised concerns that moving large numbers of parents from dependence on cash assistance into the workforce would result in an increase in the proportion of subsidies paid to informal caregivers. The absence of a body of research on this type of care made it difficult to assess the likely consequences for parents (in terms of their ability to obtain and hold onto jobs) and for children's well-being.
THE CHALLENGES
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Bibliography Citation
Brown-Lyons, Melanie, Anne Robertson and Jean Layzer. "Kith and Kin - Informal Child Care: Highlights from Recent Research." Report, New York NY: National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University, May 2001. |