Clarification on Child Care Survey

A few people have emailed to suggest that perhaps CNN misinterpreted the parameters of the survey referenced here yesterday. So I tracked down the original article, "Are There Long-Term Effects of Early Child Care," pages 681-701 in the March/April 2007 issue of Child Development. There are 6 authors. The first two are Jay Belsky and Deborah Lowe Vandell.

On page 682 we find this definition:

Especially because definition would affect which child care arrangements were -- and were not -- studied, the decision was made to define child care broadly, such that any and all nonmaternal care that was regularly scheduled for at least 10 hr per week qualified as "child care," including care by fathers, grandparents, and other relatives.

One item mentioned on page 696 was that parenting quality "provided to be a far stronger and more concistent predictor of tested achievement and teacher-reported social functioning than was child-care experience." Another shocker was that children in higher quality child care did better than those in poorer quality care.