Child care centers as workplaces
Abstract
This paper deals with a subject of central interest for feminist economics: the working conditions of employees in a caregiving occupation that is low paid, female dominated and in an industry crucial for parents in the labor market. The qualitative research employed here is also of interest to feminist economics, which seeks to use a broader range of methodologies than is typically found in economics journals.The paper examines the labor market and work environment for caregivers who provide care for young children in child care centers. It is based on twenty intensive interviews with child care aides, teachers and directors in four different types of large child care centers in Santa Clara County, California. Topics discussed are pay and benefits, adequacy of staffing (induding matters of recruitment and retention), the directors' managerial roles, the effects on the workplace of center ownership and governance, opportunities for professional development and relations with children and parents.The paper provides a model of the kinds of insights that can be had from paying attention to the words of economic actors. For example, the findings about the importance forjob satisfaction of substitute teachers, managerial styles of directors, early childhood education classes and relations with parents have not been studied or reported in other research on child care workers. The detailed descriptions of the characteristics of workers sought by child care center directors have also not been previously reported. The reproduction of the exact words of the respondents enables readers to develop an appreciation of the difficulty and stressfulness of child care workers' jobs; this type of understanding does not emerge from quantitative work.Based on the findings, the paper calls for the funding of demonstration projects to assess the cost effectiveness of several specific policies.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Taylor and Francis Journals in its journal Feminist Economics.
Volume (Year): 1 (1995)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 93-119
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/link.asp?target=journal&id=101482
Order Information:
Web: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/subscription.asp
Related research
Keywords: Child care; quantitative economics research; job satisfaction; female occupation; child care management; child care staffing patterns;References
No references listed on IDEASYou can help add them by filling out this form.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Julie Nelson, 1999. "Of Markets And Martyrs: Is It OK To Pay Well For Care?," Feminist Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 43-59.
- Susan Donath, 2000. "The Other Economy: A Suggestion for a Distinctively Feminist Economics," Feminist Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 115-123.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:1:y:1995:i:1:p:93-119For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Michael McNulty).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.