Understanding the Association Between Childcare Precarity and Emotional Distress

IF 2 4区医学 Q2 PEDIATRICS

Child Care Health and Development Pub Date : 2025-04-03 DOI:10.1111/cch.70076

Mateus M. Mazzaferro, Sihong Liu, Philip Fisher

{"title":"Understanding the Association Between Childcare Precarity and Emotional Distress","authors":"Mateus M. Mazzaferro, Sihong Liu, Philip Fisher","doi":"10.1111/cch.70076","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Background</h3>\n \n <p>For families with young children, securing reliable childcare may present a significant challenge. Rising costs, limited resources and the COVID-19 pandemic have heightened the precarity of childcare arrangements. Childcare precarity, defined as a state of insecure or unreliable childcare arrangements while parents work or attend school, reflects unpredictability in family life and early care and education settings and has important implications for families' economic and psychosocial well-being. This study aims at broadening the conceptualization of childcare precarity to include childcare search status and examine its association with caregiver and child emotional distress.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Methods</h3>\n \n <p>Participants were 3115 caregivers in the United States (88% female, 67% white) who completed the RAPID Survey between November 2022 and December 2023 and reported working or attending school. We assess whether including a childcare search status as an indicator of precarity improves the cross-sectional prediction of caregiver and child emotional distress beyond commonly used indicators (unreliability and disruptions). Using a person-centred approach, we also conduct an exploratory latent class analysis (LCA) to identify distinct experiences of childcare precarity and associated emotional distress.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Results</h3>\n \n <p>Childcare unreliability and disruptions were associated with caregiver distress. For children, unreliability was associated with fear/anxiety, while disruptions were associated with fussiness/defiance. Childcare search status was also linked to both caregiver and child emotional distress, improving model fit compared to baseline models. Our exploratory LCA identified a five-class solution as optimal, with emotional distress outcomes varying significantly across classes and correlating with levels of precarity.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Discussion</h3>\n \n <p>Our findings highlight the importance of a multidimensional approach to childcare precarity. Identifying distinct precarity profiles can inform targeted policy interventions to support diverse family needs. Future research should validate these findings and explore the broader impact of early life unpredictability.</p>\n </section>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":55262,"journal":{"name":"Child Care Health and Development","volume":"51 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Child Care Health and Development","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cch.70076","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PEDIATRICS","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

For families with young children, securing reliable childcare may present a significant challenge. Rising costs, limited resources and the COVID-19 pandemic have heightened the precarity of childcare arrangements. Childcare precarity, defined as a state of insecure or unreliable childcare arrangements while parents work or attend school, reflects unpredictability in family life and early care and education settings and has important implications for families' economic and psychosocial well-being. This study aims at broadening the conceptualization of childcare precarity to include childcare search status and examine its association with caregiver and child emotional distress.

Methods

Participants were 3115 caregivers in the United States (88% female, 67% white) who completed the RAPID Survey between November 2022 and December 2023 and reported working or attending school. We assess whether including a childcare search status as an indicator of precarity improves the cross-sectional prediction of caregiver and child emotional distress beyond commonly used indicators (unreliability and disruptions). Using a person-centred approach, we also conduct an exploratory latent class analysis (LCA) to identify distinct experiences of childcare precarity and associated emotional distress.

Results

Childcare unreliability and disruptions were associated with caregiver distress. For children, unreliability was associated with fear/anxiety, while disruptions were associated with fussiness/defiance. Childcare search status was also linked to both caregiver and child emotional distress, improving model fit compared to baseline models. Our exploratory LCA identified a five-class solution as optimal, with emotional distress outcomes varying significantly across classes and correlating with levels of precarity.

Discussion

Our findings highlight the importance of a multidimensional approach to childcare precarity. Identifying distinct precarity profiles can inform targeted policy interventions to support diverse family needs. Future research should validate these findings and explore the broader impact of early life unpredictability.

查看原文本刊更多论文

了解儿童保育不稳定性与情绪困扰的关系

对于有幼儿的家庭来说，确保可靠的托儿服务可能是一个重大挑战。成本上升、资源有限以及2019冠状病毒病大流行加剧了托儿安排的不稳定性。托儿不稳定的定义是，在父母工作或上学期间，托儿安排不安全或不可靠的状态，反映了家庭生活和早期护理和教育环境的不可预测性，对家庭的经济和社会心理福祉具有重要影响。本研究旨在扩大托儿不稳定性的概念，包括托儿寻找状况，并探讨其与照顾者和儿童情绪困扰的关系。参与者为美国3115名护理人员（88%为女性，67%为白人），他们在2022年11月至2023年12月期间完成了RAPID调查，并报告工作或上学。我们评估了将托儿搜索状态作为不稳定性指标是否可以改善护理者和儿童情绪困扰的横断面预测，而不是常用的指标（不可靠性和中断）。采用以人为本的方法，我们还进行了探索性潜在阶级分析（LCA），以确定儿童保育不稳定性和相关情绪困扰的不同经历。结果托儿不可靠和干扰与照顾者苦恼有关。对于儿童来说，不可靠与恐惧/焦虑有关，而破坏与挑剔/蔑视有关。儿童保育搜索状态也与照顾者和儿童的情绪困扰有关，与基线模型相比，提高了模型的拟合度。我们的探索性LCA确定了一个5级的最佳解决方案，不同阶层的情绪困扰结果差异很大，并与不稳定性水平相关。我们的研究结果强调了对儿童保育不稳定性采取多维方法的重要性。确定不同的不稳定状况可以为有针对性的政策干预提供信息，以支持不同的家庭需求。未来的研究应该验证这些发现，并探索早期生活不可预测性的更广泛影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Child Care Health and Development 医学-小儿科

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

5.30%

发文量

136

审稿时长

4-8 weeks

期刊介绍： Child: care, health and development is an international, peer-reviewed journal which publishes papers dealing with all aspects of the health and development of children and young people. We aim to attract quantitative and qualitative research papers relevant to people from all disciplines working in child health. We welcome studies which examine the effects of social and environmental factors on health and development as well as those dealing with clinical issues, the organization of services and health policy. We particularly encourage the submission of studies related to those who are disadvantaged by physical, developmental, emotional and social problems. The journal also aims to collate important research findings and to provide a forum for discussion of global child health issues.