Use of Relative Care by Working Parents

No. 23 in Series, "Snapshots of America's Families III"

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Many parents rely on relatives to care for their children while they are at work. In 2002, approximately 26.7 percent of children under age 13 with an employed parent spent at least some time in relative care on a regular basis, whether in the child's home or the relative's. This estimate translates into 8.9 million children regularly spending time in relative care; of these children, 6.4 million received no other nonparental care.

Parents choose relative care for many reasons. It may be the only option they can find or afford, it may accommodate nontraditional or shifting work schedules, it may allow them to place their children in the care of someone they know and trust, or it may meet some combination of these needs (Brandon et al. 2002; Lesser et al. 2003). The prevalence and importance of relative care for families underscores the need to develop strategies for supporting relative caregivers. Yet public agencies and nonprofits offering these supports may find it harder to connect with relative caregivers than with regulated providers such as center-based or family child care, who are more easily identifiable.

While the use of relative care has generally not changed between 1999 and 2002, appreciation of its importance has grown, as has the realization that policymakers lack a basic picture of such care. This Snapshot uses the 1999 and 2002 rounds of the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to examine working parents' use of relatives as caregivers for children under age 13.¹ It reports the percentage of children who regularly spend some time each week in relative care and the shares of children who are in relative care exclusively and in relative care combined with another form of child care.² It also shows the percentage of children in relative care who are in relative care full time (35 or more hours a week). Because child care arrangements can vary significantly by age, the Snapshot looks at children in four age groups: under 3, 3 to 4, 6 to 9, and 10 to 12.³

Notes from this section

1 "Parent" refers to the adult in the household identified as "most knowledgeable" about the child. Such adults, usually parents, were asked about child care arrangements used at least once a week in the past month and the number of hours spent in each arrangement. "Relative care" does not include either parent, even if the parents live in separate households.

2 Children in the latter category may be in one or more additional nonparental arrangements, including center-based care, before- and after-school care, family child care, or nanny/babysitter care. Relative care may or may not be the arrangement in which they spend the most hours. Because the NSAF asks only about regular child care arrangements, these data cannot be used to measure how many parents rely on relatives for occasional care.

3 Five-year-olds are not included because their child care arrangements differ significantly depending on whether they have started school. See Kathleen Snyder and Sarah Adelman, The Use of Relative Care While Parents Work: Findings from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, 2004), Assessing the New Federalism Discussion Paper 04-09.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

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