Childcare and early years survey of parents: 2011
Findings of the 2011 survey from the childcare and early years survey of parents series.
Documents
Details
Reference Id: SFR08/2013
Publication type: Statistical release
Publication data: Pre-release access data
Region: England
Release date: 31 January 2013
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 and the influence of childcare arrangements on mothers’ decisions about whether to go out to work.
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 2010 and 2011 are more common.
Some key findings from the survey:
- In 2011, 78% of all families with children aged under 15 had used some form of childcare. This equated to 4,181,000 families or 5,954,000 children. 63% had used formal childcare and/or early years provision and 39% used informal childcare.
- There is no change in uptake of formal or informal childcare from 2010.
- 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 (87%) * Family circumstances: children in working families and higher income families were more likely to receive formal childcare than workless families or low-income families. * Ethnicity: formal childcare is more likely to be used by children from white British families than those from all Asian ethnic groups.
- 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.
- Around one quarter of parents (26%) thought it was difficult or very difficult to pay for childcare (mainly workless families, lone parents) but just over half thought it was easy or very easy to pay (51%). This shows no change from 2010.
- Just over half (53%) of non-working mothers said that they would prefer to work if they could arrange reliable, convenient, affordable, and good quality childcare, showing no change from the 2010 survey.
Amendments have been made to the Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents 2011 following the identification of the incorrect calculation of the proportion of families not using childcare in the past year. This has only affected one reporting of the statistic in section 6.5.
Steve Hamilton
0207 340 7916