SOCIAL WELFARE

Social Welfare

Social Welfare

Introduction

As a result of the changing childrearing landscape in the USA by the mid to late 1980s and the heated debate about inferences that could be drawn regarding the effects of childcare at that time, especially on social and emotional development, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) launched in 1991 the largest and most comprehensive investigation of childcare ever undertaken. The Study has followed 1364 children born in 10 different US locales from the age of one month through the age of 15 years, though data for this last time of measurement are still being processed. Among other things, children were observed in whatever routinely scheduled non-maternal care arrangement they spent at least 10 hours per week in at the age of 6, 15, 24, 36, and 54 months, including centre- or group-based care (e.g., day care centre, nursery, preschool), family day care (i.e., care in the private home of a non-relative, also known as childminders in some countries), baby sitters/nannies (i.e., care typically provided in the child's own home by a non-relative), and care by a relative (including father). This paper provides an analysis of a social welfare problem from a historical perspective.

Discussion

Critics of the conclusion that early day care—and later of care initiated in the first year or two of life on a full or near full-time basis continuing through the start of school (Belsky, 1994, 2001)—was a 'risk factor' contended that (1) independence was being confused with avoidance in the assessment of attachment security; (2) assertiveness was being mistaken for aggression in the assessment of social welfare functions; (3) studies purporting to document risk failed to control for the non-random assignment of children to childcare (i.e., selection effects); and, perhaps most insistently, (4) effects attributed to timing and dosage of care were fundamentally a product of low quality care that went unmeasured in too many inquiries (Clarke-Stewart, 1989; McGurk, Caplan, Hennessy, & Moss, 1993; Phillips, McCartney, Scarr, & Howes, 1987; Scarr, Phillips, & McCartney, 1989; Thompson, 1988).

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is the main source of government funding for child care, both in terms of support for low-income families and overall quality improvement of child care services in the U.S. (Greenberg, Lombardi & Schumacher, 2000). Created as a component of welfare reform in 1996, it is a combination of child care funds available through Social Security, Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), and excess or transferred Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds; this combination of child care funds was meant to restructure, streamline, and simplify a somewhat complex child care support system (Long, Kirby, Kurka & Waters, 1998). Specifically, CCDF provides financial support through vouchers and grants to low-income parents needing non-parental childcare while employed outside the home. Generally, this legislation most significantly impacted low-income single mothers, 68 percent of whom are employed (Jones-DeWeever, Peterson, & Song, 2003).

Effects on Child Social Development

For more than 30 years, evidence has been reported linking exposure ...