Childcare and early years survey of parents: 2010
Findings from the 2010 survey in the childcare and early years survey of parents series.
Documents
Details
Reference Id: OSR12/2012
Publication type: Statistical release
Publication data: Pre-release access data
Region: England
Release date: 28 June 2012
Coverage status: Final
Publication status: Published
This survey aims to provide up-to-date and accurate information on parents’ childcare arrangements and their views of particular childcare providers and childcare provision in general.
The report describes in detail what childcare is used by different types of families, changes in take-up over the years, parents’ reasons for using or not using childcare and for choosing particular providers.
Key breakdowns are by age of child, types of providers, family socio-economic classifications, region, and levels of deprivation.
Some time series allow comparisons to be made from 2004 although comparisons between 2009 and 2010 are more common.
Key findings
- In 2010, 78% of all families with children aged under 15 had used some form of childcare. This equated to 4,154,000 families or 5,725,000 children. 63% had used formal childcare and/or early years provision and 38% used informal childcare.
- After accounting for an alteration in the questionnaire, there was no change in the level of use of formal childcare between 2009 and 2010 (63% for the latter) but a small significant decrease was reported for use of informal childcare (41% to 38%).
- Significant differences in levels of formal childcare use were found when looking at certain characteristics (and remained significant when analysed alongside a range of other factors): * Age: receipt of formal childcare was most common among 3- and 4-year-olds (84%) and receipt of informal care was most common among those aged 2 years or under (33%) * Family circumstances: children in couple families, working families and higher income families were all more likely to receive formal childcare than lone parents, workless families or low-income families.
- Take-up of formal childcare also differed significantly by other characteristics (ethnicity, region, deprivation and rurality) when they were analysed in isolation but were not statistically significant when analysed alongside other factors.
The survey is funded by the Department for Education and has been carried out by Ipsos MORI.
Amendments have been made to the Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents 2010 following the identification of an incorrect reference category used in the regression model which informed table C2.15 and text in section 2.8. Also updated were figures in annex A relating to respondents access to a car which had not been updated from 2009, and the base sizes in table 9.8 where a small number had been erroneously excluded. These updates do not affect the interpretation of the published statistics.
Steve Hamilton
0207 340 7916