CAPÍTULO 2: MARCO TEÓRICO
2.3.3 Componentes del concreto
(Multinominal Logit Estimation)
Variable Relative Care Home-Based Care Center-Based Care Predicted probability of full-time employment -3.096* -2.951** 6.046*** (-1.91) (-2.27) (3.52) Predicted wage 0.946* 1.000** -1.947*** (1.84) (2.42) (-3.60) Education -0.050* -0.042* 0.093*** (-1.72) (-1.87) (3.05)
State’s average monthly AFDC payment per family
-6.E-4* -2.E-4 9.E-4*
(-1.84) (-1.01) (2.51)
(Multinominal Logit Estimation Including Three Separate Predicted Prices of Child Care)
Variable Relative Care Home-based Care Center-Based Care Predicted probability of full-time employment -3.141*** -0.258 3.398*** (-3.17) (-0.37) (3.34) Predicted wage 1.095*** 0.204 -1.299*** (2.66) (0.68) (-3.13) Education -0.108*** 0.043 0.151*** (-2.81) (-1.55) (3.78)
State’s average monthly AFDC payment per family
-6.E-4 3.E-4 3.E-4
(-1.57) (0.97) (0.86)
Significance levels: *10%, ** 5%, ***1%
Additional variables include: predicted price of care, predicted price of relative care, predicted price of home-care,
predicted price of center-based care, age, nonwhite, nonlabor income, youngest child is an infant, presence of other preschoolers, presence of children aged 6–12, presence of children aged 13-17, presence of other adults, urban residence, and state’s average Medicaid expenditure per enrollee.
depended on the public sector. For children up to age 16, or older in some states, schooling is mandatory and is provided by the public sector. In the cases of elementary and secondary education, as well as public colleges and universities, the price charged tends to be far below the marginal cost of schooling.
Evaluation of the appropriate level of public investment in education requires an analysis of all returns to schooling, including nonmarket and external effects. For example, greater education may lead to social cohesion and may enable one to use new technologies; it may reduce the probability of criminal acts, reduce the probability of application for and receipt of transfers, and increase savings rates. (For more on this see Wolfe and Zuvekas, 1997, and Michael, 1982.)
Many of the benefits of child care are like those of primary schooling, because child care is early childhood education. These early childhood educational experiences affect children’s readiness for primary schooling in the same way that primary schooling affects children’s readiness for secondary schooling. In both cases, many benefits are external to the child and family. The community at large would benefit from the cognitive, language, and behavioral competencies that are associated with higher- quality child care. The argument for equality of opportunity is similar as well.
A high-quality child care system also is needed if welfare reform is to succeed. The recent change in welfare policy, establishing work requirements, means that more parents, particularly single parents, are working, because work is their only potential source of income. Requiring work means that more parents must find child care for their children. Given this increase in demand, the issue of child care quality becomes even more important. Unfortunately, as described in earlier sections, much of the child care in the United States is not of high quality. Over 60 percent of children under the age of 3 are receiving care in which positive caregiving is not characteristic. Only 10 percent are in care settings that are described as excellent.
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WHAT MIGHT BE DONE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF CHILD CARE?
A wide variety of approaches might be used to improve child care. Figure 7 provides a path model that attempts to identify the various links between interventions and quality, taking into account parents’ resources. The potential interventions include provision of information, licensing requirements, placement activities, subsidies to compensate child care workers, training programs for providers, tuition subsidies for students who enroll in early childhood education, increased tax credits to cover the cost of care for lower- to middle-income families, incentive payments to individual teachers and assistants who remain in the same center for a minimum of 3–4 years, and even direct provision of care. In the longer run, we need research to help better identify those factors that best improve the quality of child care. In essence, we need better understanding of the production of high-quality care, which may differ for children of different backgrounds.
The minimum role for the public sector is as a provider of information on available slots, hours of operation, structural quality features, costs of care and education, and training of personnel. The
government might also establish programs to certify and offer incentives to providers who meet certain requirements. Minimum standards need to be strengthened in many states. Other government activities to increase the availability of high-quality care could include operation of training programs and covering the cost of instructors and facilities for these programs. Information on the successful completion of such programs could be disseminated by the public sector as part of its information activities.
A more ambitious role designed to increase the pool of well-qualified individuals who enter (and remain) in the field of early childhood education would be some form of tuition subsidy for those willing to major in this field. There is a long tradition of such programs when shortages are anticipated; examples include nursing education and medical school. An alternative might be a college loan forgiveness
program based on years spent as a child care provider following college or completion of an Associate degree. Another approach to increasing the pool of qualified providers is to raise salaries. This seems