Benefits of improved access to day care cancelled out by low-pay trap

17 October 2003

Mothers from socially disadvantaged families with access to good day care are more likely to take up paid work, but could actually see a reduction in their household income as a result, according to research published in today's British Medical Journal.

The study was the first randomised controlled trial of the effects of day care to be conducted in the UK. 120 families, including 143 children, took part in the study. Half had been randomly allocated a place at the Mapledene Early Years Centre (a Government-designated Early Excellence Centre) on the Holly Street Estate in the London Borough of Hackney while the remainder had agreed to provide data through questionnaires and in-depth interviews over an 18-month follow up period.

The findings indicated that 23% more women were in paid work among mothers using the day care centre than amongst those whose children were not allocated a place at the Centre. However, despite this effect of increased employment, there was no evidence of a corresponding increase in household income. Indeed, women entering paid employment often experienced a reduction in their entitlement to benefits such as Housing Benefit or Working Families Tax Credit on increasing their hours of paid work.

This supports findings of other studies which suggest that mothers' decisions to enter the labour market may not be motivated solely by immediate financial returns, but also by other factors including the need to maximise long-term earning potential, relief from full-time childcare and job satisfaction.

One of the report's authors, Tami Toroyan, Research Fellow in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Public Health Intervention Research Unit, says: 'This trial offers some support for government initiatives which have been developed in the belief that day care provision can increase a mother's take-up of employment opportunities. But our findings also indicate that paid employment does not provide an instant ticket out of poverty by increasing household income'.

The trial was carried out in the context of very high unmet demand for good quality day care places - a characteristic that persists in many boroughs like Hackney, despite increasing government investment in the area.

'Future anti-poverty strategies and policies, if they are to be successful, will need to place far greater emphasis on tackling low pay, addressing the benefit structure, and reducing the costs of day care to poor families', concludes Tami Toroyan.

The study was a collaborative project with expertise from the health, education and economic disciplines, including researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the University of London Institute of Education, the City and Hackney Primary Care Trust and the University of East Anglia.

To interview the report's authors please contact:

Tami Toroyan tami.toroyan@lshtm.ac.uk
+33 4 50 33 05 02/ +33 689 36 23 74

Ian Roberts ian.roberts@lshtm.ac.uk 0207 299 4748

Ann Oakley a.oakley@ioe.ac.uk 020 7612 6380

Gabrielle Laing gabrielle.laing@chpct.nhs.uk 020 7683 4437

Miranda Mugford m.mugford@uea.ac.uk 01603 593583

Chris Frost chris.frost@lshtm.ac.uk 020 7 927 2242

Jan Turner, Head of Centre, Mapledene Early Years Centre
jturner@Mapledene.Hackney-LEA.org.uk 0207 249 8139

Ends.

Notes to Editors:

Effectiveness of out-of-home day care for disadvantaged families: randomised controlled trial was authored by Tami Toroyan, Research Fellow, and Ian Roberts, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, Public Health Intervention Research Unit, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Ann Oakley, Professor of Sociology and Social Policy and Director, Social Science Research Unit, University of London Institute of Education; Gabrielle Laing, Consultant Community Paediatrician, Child and Adolescent Services, St Leonard's, City and Hackney Primary Care Trust; Miranda Mugford, Professor of Health Economics, School of Medicine, Health Policy and Practice, University of East Anglia; Chris Frost, Senior Lecturer in Medical Statistics, Medical Statistics Unit, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The Mapledene Centre exceeds the national requirements for standard indicators of care such as staff qualifications and staff-to-child ratios. Designated by the government to be an 'Early Excellence Centre' and to act as a model of good practice and childcare provision, it aims to integrate education and care, as well as health and social services.

Results from in-depth interviews
In-depth interviews were conducted with a subsample of participating mothers. Mothers were asked to comment on the effects of daycare on a number of the study outcomes. For example, when asked to comment on the possible effects of having their child in daycare, many mothers explained how it allowed them to work, continue a professional career, and/or increase their income.

'For me - its essential for me so that my partner and I can go to work in order to live'.

'Just the actual income from working is great. It's great that parents don't have to take too long a break from their careers and put things in jeopardy'.

As well as the availability of daycare, the flexibility of the daycare provision was also considered to be important by mothers in determining whether they could find work. The Mapledene Centre aimed to provide flexible daycare to parents, such that working parents could have their child looked after for an 'extended' day, and were able to alter the days that their child was at the Centre to suit their employment situation. The benefits of this attribute of the intervention are reflected in the following statement, from an mother who was able to increase the days her daughter attended the Mapledene Centre as the opportunity to increase her work days arose:

'[The benefit of daycare] is the fact that I have been able to combine working with bringing up a family. Originally, when I had L, I was working 3 days a week and I was then able to change arrangements when I went fulltime. It was very easy to extend her daycare hours to two more days a week. Without doubt, it's all about being able to hold down a job'.

Although many children who were not allocated a place at Mapledene did find some type of daycare over the trial period, these were mostly places at a nursery unit attached to a school. Typically, the places their children were offered for were part time (morning or afternoon) 'sessional' care. Such daycare is unlikely to be as flexible as the care offered at the Mapledene Centre, with regards to the hours of care available. As this mother's quote illustrates, the hours of daycare available to participating mothers was a factor that influenced their employment decisions:

'But when it's just the one parent, you want to increase your income for the household, but you probably have to just do a part time job and even the part time job's difficult to get within those hours. Generally if I want to be finished in time to pick her up I gotta start at half 8. That's what a lot of part time jobs are involving. So I've only got a 3 hour a day job, but I mean when I looked in the dole office, nearly all the part time jobs that involved more hours, say 5 hours a day or something like that, were like 8.30 start or 2.00 start but 4.30 finish, which I can't do'.

Although many mothers reported that they would like to have returned to paid employment after having a child, some explained that the earnings they would make would not compensate for the benefits they would lose. This mother had decided not to take a part-time job for this reason:

'I mean, I wanted to go back into work. It would have been 27 hours and I would have £107.10, but I would have got £100 taken off my Family Credit, but I still would have had to pay £50 for rent and £15 council tax. Then there's childcare which is £45 a month and then I would still be left with nothing. Even if you work full time you're still going to be short some money'.