child care as an adult work environment

Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 47, No. 2, 1991, pp. 49-70

Child Care as an Adult Work Environment

Deborah Phillips University of Virginia

Carollee Howes University of California at Los Angeles

Marcy Whitebook Child Care Employee Projeci

A sample of 1307 center-based child care staff was studied to assess predictors of job satisfaction and turnover, and to link these aspects of the adulr work environment of child care to the quality of care, as assessedfrom a child development perspective. The staff were well educated in comparison to the female labor force, but they earned, on average, poverty-level wages. High levels of career orientation and satisfaction with the day-to-day demands of child care work were expressed, alongside high intended and actual turnover rates, and very low satigaction with salaries, benefits, and social status. Job satisfaction was sign$- icantly, but modestly, associated with wages, paid preparation time, reduced-jee child care, and the quality of provisions for adult needs. Staff wages were the most important negative predictor of staff turnover and positive predictor of the quality of care provided to the children. The results highlight the need to incorporate facets of the adult work environment in research on the developmental effects of child care and in policy efforts to upgrade the quality of care.

As reliance on child care has become the norm for parents of preschoolers, concerns about the quality and consequences of such care for children’s future

The authors wish to thank the A. L. Mailman Family Foundation, Foundation for Child Devel- opment, Smith-Richardson Foundation, Ford Foundation, Spunk Fund, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for their generous support of the National Child Care Staffing Study, on which this report is based.

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Deborah Phillips, Department of Psychology, Gilmer Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville. VA 22903.

49

0022-4537/91/oMx)-0049~.50/1 Q 1991 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

50 Phillips, Howes, and Whitebook

development have mounted. Efforts to determine the factors that predict quality in child care have uniformly identified the backgrounds and competence of the staff as key ingredients (Howes, 1988, 1990; McCartney, 1984; Phillips & Howes, 1987; Ruopp, Travers, Glantz, & Coelen, 1979; Whitebook, Howes, & Phillips, 1990). Stability of care has also been identified as an important predictor of children's development in child care (Cummings, 1980; Howes, 1988; Howes & Stewart, 1987). Berk (1985) further found that career-committed staff interacted in more age-appropriate and stimulating ways with the children in their care.

Despite the importance of child care staff, little is known about even the most basic characteristics of our nation's child care workers, about their job commitment, or about the factors that encourage staff career commitment and stability in child care. In part, this oversight may be attributed to the tradition of studying child care as an environment for children's development, rather than as a work environment for adults.

In the late 1980s, however, national and local trends were challenging the adequacy of the traditional, developmental model for studying child care. Specif- ically, the U.S. Department of Labor estimated that annually between 1980 and 1990,42% of all nonhome-based child care workers would need to be replaced to maintain a stable supply of staff (USDL data as cited in Hartmann & Pearce, 1989, and Phillips & Whitebook, 1986). A growing collection of local surveys (see Hartmann & Pearce, 1989) has documented annual turnover rates varying from a low of about 20% to a high of 70% between 1985 and 1989.

This new and disturbing context highlights the need for a shift in emphasis from determining which features of the staff are significant for children to identi- fying those aspects of child care, including aspects of the adult work environment, that encourage well-trained, educated, and competent staff members to remain in their jobs. Considerable research has shown that, in general, working conditions are predictive of job satisfaction and of the related construct of job burnout (Chemiss, 1980; Jayaratne & Chess, 1983; Maslach, 1982). Job dissatisfaction, in turn, has been linked to turnover rates, although the relation is generally quite weak (Cotton & "Me , 1986; Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, & Maglino, 1979).

The applicability of this literature to child care workers is, however, ten- uous. The job satisfaction literature is primarily concerned with industrial, mana- gerial, and in some cases, white-collar workers. While human service profes- sionals have provided the target group for the burnout literature, the emphasis has been on residential, child welfare, and protective services workers (see Cherniss, 1980; Jayaratne & Chess, 1983; Maslach, 1982). With a few exceptions (Berk, 1985; Jorde-Bloom, 1987, 1988; Lindsay & Lindsay, 1987; Whitebook, Howes, Darrah, & Friedman, 1982), child care workers have been neglected in this literature.

Child Care as M Adult Work Environment 51

Those who study child care suggest that the extrinsic job factors of salaries, benefits, and perceived social respect play a larger role in fueling turnover than do the intrinsic factors associated with the meaningfulness and challenge of child care work, many of which are, in fact, strong sources of job satisfaction (Berk, 1985; Jorde-Bloom, 1987; Kontos & Stremmel, 1987; Lindsay & Lindsay, 1987). Even this literature, however, is limited by its reliance on anectodal and small site-specific samples that fail to reflect the full range of center-based care in the United States. There are no studies that link working conditions and job satisfaction of child care workers to actual turnover rates examined longitudi- nally. Moreover, associations between these “adult environment” factors and the quality of care received by children remain virtually unstudied.

In terms of public policy, these issues touch upon the larger social tension between women’s wages and the affordability of child care. If child care workers are paid more as a means of enhancing job commitment, then child care costs will rise and fewer families will be able to afford this care in the absence of increased subsidization. Studies of child care quality that incorporate the adult work environment call attention to the economic dilemmas that plague the child care field.

The research reported here was specifically designed to address these significant gaps in the child care literature. This article (a) provides a contemporary profile of center-based child care workers, focusing on their working conditions, patterns of job satisfaction, and turnover rates, (b) assesses predictors of job satisfaction and turnover among these workers, and (c) examines associations between the adult work environment and the appropriateness of the activities provided to children. This report is part of a larger study, the National Child Care Staffing Study (see Whitebook et al., 1990).

Method

Sample of Centers

This study examined 227 child care centers in five metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Phoenix, and Seattle. These centers were selected from among all full-day, full-year licensed child care centers in each study site using a stratified random sampling strategy. Eligible centers were sorted into six groups based on their location in (a) low-, middle-, or high-income U.S. Census tracts, using site-specific median incomes, and (b) urban or suburban neighborhoods. Proportion9ampling produced a sample that matched the local distribution of centers across the six groups. Across all sites, 17% of the centers were in low- income census tracts, 71% in middle-income tracts, and 12% in high-income tracts; and 48% of the centers were in urban neighborhoods.

Of all eligible centers asked to participate in the study, 61% agreed. Exam-

52 Phillip, Howes, and Whitebook

ination of differential participation indicated some potential for bias in the sample due to higher participation rates for nonprofit than for-profit centers, for centers serving low-income families, and for centers that may offer somewhat higher quality care than is typical in the study sites. Although the centers were not sampled to represent the various types and qualities of centers across the nation, wide ranges in characteristics were achieved (see Whitebook et al., 1990). Non- profit centers constituted 51% of the sample, and for-profit centers constituted 49% (including 8% that were members of local or national chains).

Sample of Child Care Workers

The sample of child care workers consisted of 1309 staff members in the 227 centers. Staff were selected following the random selection of an infant classroom, a toddler classroom, and a preschool classroom in each center for intensive observation. In centers that did not enroll infants (142 centers), two alternative strategies were used. For 94 centers that had a mixed-age classroom, it was observed. For the remaining 48 centers, only two classrooms were observed. Two staff members per classroom-one teacher and one assistant teacher, when possible-were randomly chosen to be interviewed and observed. Of the participating staff, 66% were teachers (805 teachers and 60 teacher-directors), and 34% were assistant teachers (286 assistant teachers and 158 aides). Each of the selected teachers agreed to participate. All data were collected between February and August 1988 by local research teams. On average, at least two assistants spent three days in each center to complete data collection.

Measures

Measures assessing three constructs are discussed in this article: characteristics of the child care staff their working conditions, job satisfaction, and turnover rates; and the quality of care received by the children.

Staff characteristics. Each participating child care worker was individually interviewed, using a standardized form consisting of seven sections including personal background, child care experience, other career experience, and educational history. One-week test-retest reliabilities on these items, assessed with an independent sample of 15 child care staff, ranged from .71 to .92, with an average r of .79.

Working conditions, job satisfaction, and turnover. The staff interview also included sections on working conditions and job satisfaction. The working conditions items inquired about wages, benefits, and other aspects of the work environment such as the availability of parental leaves and reduced-fee child care

Child Care aa an Adult Work Environment 53

(see test-retest rs above). The Adult Needs subscale from the Environment Rating Scales (see quality of care measures, below) provided an additional index of working conditions (test-retest r = .93; alpha = .92).

With respect to job satisfaction, two sets of questions inquired about why the worker chose to work in child care generally and in the participating center in particular. Specific subscales, derived from the Early Childhood Work Attitudes Survey (Jorde-Bloom, 1986), were included to assess satisfaction with co-worker relations, supervisor relations, compensation, decision-making autonomy, con- trol over one’s activities, work demands, and job commitment. The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) (Vocational Psychology Research, 1963), which taps multiple intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of job satisfaction (see Berk, 1985), was also included. The 102 items composing these job satisfaction scales were reduced to 14 subscales using a maximum likelihood factor analysis with oblique rotation. The solution accounted for 41% of the total variance. The factors are listed in Table 2. Staff were also asked if they viewed child care as a job or a career.

Innover rates were obtained from two sources: Each center director reported the percentage of classroom personnel who had left within the last 12 months. Follow-up calls made to 71% of the participating child care workers 6 months after their initial interview provided actual turnover rates. The staff, at the time of their initial interview, also indicated whether they expected to stay at the center for the next 12 months. Intercorrelations among these turnover measures were modest, ranging from a high of r = .42 (n = 787) for the staffs’ intended and actual rates to a low of r = .02 (n = 1300) for the staffs’ intentions and the directors’ respective rates.

Qualiv of care. The quality of care received by the children in the participating centers was assessed using observations of classroom quality and struc- ture. Quality was assessed with the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS; Harms & Clifford, 1980) for each preschool classroom and the Infant- Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS; Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 1986) for each infant and toddler classroom. These scales contain 37 and 33 items, respectively, that provide an assessment of developmentally relevant aspects of care ranging from health and safety provisions to the appropriateness of staff-child interactions. Each item is rated on a 7-point scale, anchored by descriptors, ranging from inadequate to excellent care. Interobserver reliabilities for the environment rating scales averaged 84.7% within study sites (ranging from 80% to 87%), and 81.4% across sites.

Two subscales, Appropriate Caregiving and Developmentally Appropriate Activities, were derived from a maximum likelihood factor analysis, with oblique rotation, of the ECERS and ITERS scale items. Only the Activities factor, capturing the quality of the materials, scheduling, and activities, is re-


ported in this article. It accounted for 48% of the variance in the preschool version and 44% of the variance in the infant/toddler version.

Observations of the child-staff ratios and group sizes in each target classroom were recorded at regular intervals during the two-hour observation period. The observations were averaged across all intervals to produce a final child- adult ratio and group size score for each age-grouped classroom.

Results and Discussion

Overview of Staff Characteristics

To place the subsequent results in context, a brief overview of staff characteristics is provided (for details, see Whitebook et al., 1990). The participating child care staff were predominantly women (97%) and were relatively young, with 81% aged 40 years or younger. Approximately one-third of the staff were members of minorities-a higher share than characterized the adult population in the study sites. Only 44% of the sample were married, and 41% had children, with about half of the number having preschool-aged children. Of the sample, 24% lived with their parents, and 10% were single parents who lived alone with their children. One-fifth of the staff were sole earners. Close to half (43%) contributed 50% or more to their household income.

The educational levels of the staff were relatively high compared to the female civilian labor force. While less than half (44%) of all women in the civilian labor force have attended college (U.S. Department of Labor, 1988), more than half of the assistant teachers (56%) and 74% of the teachers in this study had some college experience. Moreover, 65% of the teachers and 57% of the assistant teachers had taken coursework in early childhood education or child development within the formal educational system. Half of those with specialized training had received it at the college level or above.

This profile resembles national data (see Coelen, Glantz, & Calore, 1978; Hartmann & Pearce, 1989; Phillips & Whitebook, 1986) concerning the dispro- portionate numbers of women and minorities, the relatively young average age, and the high levels of education and training that characterize the child care work force. These data, along with recent specialized (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1984) and local (Riley & Rodgers, 1989) surveys have also confi ied the sizable contribution that child care wages make to staff members’ family income.

Compensation and Working Conditions

The working conditions of child care staff were characterized by taxing job demands, low wages, and limited benefits. The typical staff member in this study

Child Care as M Adult Work Environment 55

worked year round, 35 hours per week, with an additional 3.5 hours of unpaid work. The mean ratings for the adequacy with which adult needs were met in infant, toddler, and preschool classrooms (the Adult Needs subscale) were 3.63 (SD = l . l l ) , 3.67 (SD = 1.20), and 4.00 (SD = 1.13), respectively. These ratings fall well below the “good” level of quality indicated by a score of 5.00 on these scales, which was met or exceeded by only 17% of the infant rooms, 16% of the toddler rooms, and 24% of the preschool rooms.

’hning to compensation, the average hourly wage of the participating staff was $5.35, which places annual full-time earnings ($9,363) below the 1988 poverty threshold for a family of three ($943 1)-the average size of the staff in this sample. Moreover, 57% of the sample earned $5 per hour or less, and only 16% earned more than $7 per hour. Examining variation in the wages of full-time child care staff with different positions in the center revealed a very slight wage scale [F(3,1295) = 42.60, p < .001]. Teachers earned slightly over one dollar more per hour (M = $5.70) than assistant teachers (M = $4.67; p < -05). When adjusted for inflation, teachers’ earnings fell by 27% and assistants’ by 20% between 1977 and 1988, despite gains in overall education and experience, based on data from the National Day Care Study (Coelen et al., 1978). This finding of poverty-level wages is universal to both national and local surveys of child care staff, as is the evidence that the real value of child care wages has deteriorated in recent years (Hartmann & Pearce, 1989; Lindsay & Lindsay, 1987; Phillips & Whitebook, 1986).

The low salaries of child care staff were not offset by generous benefit packages. As seen in Table 1, benefits including annual salary increases (merit increases and cost-of-living adjustments-COLAS), health care coverage, and long-term financial stability (e.g., retirement and life insurance) were received by only a minority of the staff. In contrast, reduced-fee, on-site child care was available to the majority of the participating staff. However, a price was paid for this benefit-staff in those centers that offered reduced-fee child care were less likely than those in centers not offering child care to report receiving fully- or partially-paid health insurance [chi-square( 1) = 3.72, p < .05]. The majority of the staff members received at least one day of sick leave (M = 9.14 days), paid holidays (M = 7.27 days), and paid vacation time (M = 10.26 days). As with salaries, benefits varied significantly with staff position (see Table 1). Aides consistently received the fewest benefits, followed by assistant teachers and teachers. Teacher-directors, however, did not consistently receive better benefits than teachers.

This profile of benefits corresponds to that of other national and local survey data (Coelen et al., 1978; Hartmann & Pearce, 1989; Lindsay & Lindsay, 1987; Riley & Rodgers, 1989). In general, those benefits that do not place a sizable financial burden on centers, such as reduced-fee child care and sick leave, are far more common than are the more costly benefits such as health insurance. While


Table 1. Benefits Received by All Staff and Differences by Position

Percentage receiving benefit

Teacher- Assistant All staff director Teacher teacher Aide

Benefit (N = 1309) (n = 60) (n = 805) (n = 286) (n = 158) Chi-square

COLA 33.7 42 37 29 24 12.7** Merit increase 41.7 31 41 31 17 17.1*** Reduced-fee 58.8 71 62 55 43 19.3***

Retirement 16.9 25 19 5 3 44.7*** Health 33.3 31 41 31 17 32.9***

Life insurance 23.8 19 26 22 16 9.3* Sick leave 56.8 63 65 47 32 61.4***

Paid vacations 63.7 74 72 52 33 103.1*** Paid preparation 82.0 93 86 77 68 38.5***

Written contract 77.0 86 79 77 64 24.1 * * *

child care

insurance

Paid holidays 67.2 76 74 60 43 60.4***

time

and griev- ance pro- cedure

* p < .05. * * p < .01. * * * p < ,001.

the available benefits may serve child care workers well in the short term, there is cause for concern about the long-term consequences of maintaining employment without health or life insurance, regular salary increases, and retirement support.

Job Satisfaction and Turnover

The job satisfaction of the participating staff presented a complex picture. On one hand, two-thirds of the staff reported viewing their child care work as a career rather than as a temporary job, and 80% replied affirmatively when asked if they would again choose to work in child care. Jorde-Bloom (1988) reported comparable job commitment figures on a large sample of child care workers in Illinois. On the other hand, when asked if they expected to remain in theirjobs, 45% of the staff indicated that they were “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to leave. These figures regarding turnover intentions closely match comparable figures from other child care studies (Jorde-Bloom, 1988; Whitebook et al., 1982).

Actual turnover rates were also disturbingly high. Center directors reported an average annual turnover rate of 41%, which represents close to a tripling of

C u d Care as an Adult Work Environment 57

the 15% rate reported in the National Day Care Study in 1977 (Coelen et al., 1978). The share of directors reporting no staff turnover in the prior 12 months declined from 40% in 1977 to 7% in 1988. The 6-month follow-up calls to the staff revealed a turnover rate of 37%. Of those who had left the center, one-third remained in child care, indicating that turnover does not necessarily imply a loss of that individual to the field.

What explains this disparity between the indications of high job commitment and high intended, as well as actual, turnover? One answer can be found in the patterns of job satisfaction revealed by the staff (see Table 2). The staff were very satisfied with the day-to-day aspects of their jobs, particularly their relations with colleagues, opportunities for autonomy and challenge, and working conditions. They were, however, relatively dissatisfied with their salaries, benefits, and social status. This distinction between satisfaction with the intrinsic nature of child care work and dissatisfaction with the more extrinsic aspects of compensation and status is a common pattern in the literature (Lindsay & Lindsay, 1987), and also suggests that a major reason for high turnover rates is that staff simply cannot afford to remain in the field despite a strong commitment to and enjoy- ment of their work. Not surprisingly, when asked for recommendations to improve recruitment and retention, child care staff assigned the highest ranks to improvements in compensation and status (Whitebook et al., 1990).

A multiple analysis of variance with st& position as the independent vari- able and the 14 job satisfaction factors as the dependent variables, followed by univariate analyses of variance, was conducted to examine differences in job

Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations for Job Satisfaction Factors

Factor M a SD

Co-worker relations Supervisor relations Opportunities for challenge Opportunities for autonomy Working conditions Job security Work/family relations Democratic director Job commitment Advancement opportunities Work demands Perceived social status Salary and benefits Fairness of salary

4.19 4.07 4.02 3.98 3.91 3.90 3.73 3.60 3.41 3.05 3.00 2.83 2.83 2.61

.65

.82

.62

.78

.62

.77

.71 t94 .42

1.12 .67 .84 .76 .93

“A score of 5.00 indicates high satisfaction; a score of 1 .OO indicates low satisfaction.


satisfaction by staff position. Staff in lower positions were actually more satisfied than their more senior co-workers [F(42,3721) = 5.52, p < .0oO1]. Aides were significantly more satisfied than were teachers with their working conditions and demands, salaries, social status, advancement opportunities, and job commitment (all ps < .01). On the other hand, aides and assistant teachers were significantly less satisfied than were teachers and teacher-directors with the amount of autonomy and challenge that their jobs offered. Jorde-Bloom (1988) reported a similar, inverse relation between position and job satisfaction, and Johnson (1989) reported an inverse relation between child care staff members’ educational level and satisfaction. A possible explanation is that personnel in higher positions, and those with greater qualifications, are more acutely aware of the disparity between their status as child care workers and that of other professions for which they are potentially qualified.

Predictors of Job Satisfaction

Was job satisfaction affected by variation in the wages and working conditions of child care staff? Each of the 14 satisfaction factors and the staffs’ ratings of whether they viewed child care as a job or career were regressed on eight facets of the work environment that showed relatively low intercorrelations (average r = .21, with range from r = .01 to r = .53). Hierarchical multiple regressions were run separately for infantkoddler and preschool staff (see Table 3). Staff wages were entered in step 1 , followed by the Adult Needs subscale for infantkoddler or preschool classrooms in step 2. In steps 3 and 4, health and child care benefits were entered, respectively, followed in step 5 by COLAS and merit increases, and paid preparation time.

Complex patterns of association, in which different aspects of job satisfaction were predicted by different facets of the work environment, emerged from the regressions. It is also important to note that, although the model attained significance in 23 of the 30 regressions, it never accounted for more than 13% of the variance in job satisfaction.

Staff wages were a positive predictor of whether child care work was viewed as a career for both infantltoddler and preschool staff. For preschool staff, the availability of reduced-fee child care also predicted a career orientation to child care. For all staff, wages were a negative predictor of both perceived social status and work-family relations, suggesting a somewhat counterintuitive link between higher wages, lower perceived social status, and more conflicted work-family relations. Staff with higher wages may be more likely to disparage the status of their work, given the higher status of other jobs for which they are likely to be qualified. The association between higher wages and more conflicted work-family relations may indicate that staff with higher wages work longer hours or have more demanding responsibilities that leave less time and energy for

Table 3. Regression of Job Satisfaction Dimensions on Facets of Adult Working Conditions

Job satisfaction dimension Predictors Beta t ModelR R 2 F

Job-career:I/T Job-career:P

Autonomy:I/T Autonomy:P

Challenge:I/T Chal1enge:P

Job commitment:I/T Job commitment:P

Social status:I/T Social status:P

Work demands:I/T Work demands:P

Advance 0pps:IIT Advance opps:P

Staff wages Staff wages Reduced child care (cc) fees

Paid preparation (prep) time Staff wages Reduced cc fees Merit increases Paid prep time

No significant predictors Staff wages Paid prep time

Paid prep time Staff wages Adult Needs

Staff wages Staff wages Adult Needs Health benefits

No significant predictors No significant predictors

Adult Needs Adult Needs Health benefits Paid prep time

,133 . I 99 ,099

.229

.I39 ,118 .092 .I07

.201

.I66

. I81

.086

.lo6

-.I74 -.I54

.I37

.I18

,127 .I15 ,122 . I 13

2.53* ,145 ,021 ns 4.58*** .286 ,072 5.57*** 2.29*

3.63 * * * .219 ,048 2.50* 3.17** .234 .055 4.20*** 2.70** 2.08* 2.o6*

4.65 * * * 3.23**

2.87** I .%* 2.28*

-3.32* ** -3.52***

2.97** 2.26*

.212 ,074 5.77***

.I95 ,038 ns

.I76 ,031 2.28*

.205 ,042 2.16*

.240 .058 4.42***

2.29* ,176 ,031 ns 2.45* .235 .055 4.22*** 2.30* 2.18*

(continued)

9

P 9. a

E

9

Table 3. (Continued)

lob satisfaction dimension

Work/family:I/T

Work/family:P

Democratic director:I/T

Democratic director:P

Salary/benefits:I/T

Salary/benefits:P

Job security:I/T Job security:P

Staff wages Reduced fee cc Paid prep time Staff wages Reduced fee cc Paid prep time

Reduced fee cc Paid prep time

Adult Needs Merit increases Paid prep time

COLA Paid prep time Staff wages Adult Needs Paid prep time

Paid prep time Paid prep time

-.190 ,248 .I29

- .099 ,284 .130

-.I33 ,176

.I41

.094 ,139

.118 ,185 .I20 . I 24 .184

.I91 ,153

- 3.63* ** 4.86*** 2.14*

-2.26* 6.1 I *** 2.59**

-2.51 * 2.81**

3.03** 2.15* 2.69**

2.01* 2.94** 2.14** 2.61** 3.58***

3.12** 2.92**

,360

,333

,243

,257

,224

,270

,207 .192

,129

,111

,059

,066

.050

,073

,043 ,037

7.38***

8.99***

3.10**

5.14***

2.65*

5.70***

2.28* 2.19**

Predictors Beta t Model R R2 F

Supervisor re1ations:IIT

Supervisor re1ations:P

Co-worker re1ations:IIT

Co-worker relations:P

Fair salary:I/T

Fair sa1ary:P

Working conditions:I/T Working conditions:P

Adult Needs Paid prep time Adult Needs COLA Paid prep time

Reduced fee cc COLA Paid prep time COLA

COLA Merit increases Merit increases Paid prep time

Paid prep time Adult Needs Paid prep time

.134

.I87 ,103 ,097 .I07

-.I42 ,137 ,054 .098

.I38 ,105 .I21 ,194

,181 ,103 ,175

2.41* 2.96** 2.20* 2.01 * 2.05*

-2.66** 2.34* 2.32* 2.02*

2.35* 2.00* 2.77** 3.78***

2.87** 2.20* 3.34* **

.224

.I97

,245

.I58

,226

,270

,219 ,202

,050

,097

.060

,025

.05 1

,073

.048 ,041

2.63*

2.01 *

3.18**

ns

2.65*

5.71***

2.48* 3.10**

M 9

a E

~ ~~

Note. Betas are presented only where the full model is significant. IIT refers to infant and toddler staff, P refers to preschool staff. Ns are 355 for the infant/toddler variables and 513 for the preschool variables. * p < .05. * * p < .01. * * * p < ,001.

f


family demands. On a more positive note, for preschool staff, higher wages predicted feelings of being challenged by their work, having job autonomy and job commitment, and satisfaction with salaries and benefits.

Paid preparation time was also linked to job satisfaction. For both infant/toddler and preschool workers, staff in centers offering paid preparation time reported greater job autonomy and better work-family relations. They also viewed their directors as more democratic, were more satisfied with their salaries and benefits, reported greater job security, and were more satisfied with their supervisors and working conditions. Infantltoddler staff and preschool staff dif- fered in the link between paid preparation time and other facets of job satisfaction, but in every case paid preparation time was a positive predictor. Thus, beyond the likely effects of paid preparation time on instructional quality, it appears to reap positive benefits in the form of job satisfaction.

Reduced-fee child care, as noted above, was a second predictor of whether preschool staff viewed child care as a career. This benefit also was the most significant predictor of compatible work-family relations, perhaps because it lessened the stress of finding and paying for child care arrangements. However, for infantkoddler staff, this benefit was associated with perceiving directors as less democratic and co-worker relations as less satisfying. It appears that staff without young children may resent the inequity in benefits that inevitably occurs when reduced-fee care is offered.

The observed quality of provisions for adult needs also showed multiple significant associations with job satisfaction, particularly with perceived advancement opportunities and satisfaction with supervisors. For preschool teachers, the Adult Needs scale also predicted higher job commitment, as well as greater satisfaction with the social status, salary and benefits, director’s democratic policies, and working conditions in child care.

In sum, staff wages, paid preparation time, reduced-fee child care, and the quality of provisions for adult needs were found to predict many aspects of the staffs’ job satisfaction, although none of these factors explained more than a modest amount of the variation in satisfaction. Both paid preparation time and provisions for adult needs were uniformly positive predictors of job satisfaction, whereas wages and reduced-fee child care showed both positive and negative associations. Other facets of working conditions, such as merit and cost-of-living increases, and health benefits, showed only sporadic associations with the staffs’ job satisfaction.

Interestingly, Jorde-Bloom (1987) failed to find an association between job satisfaction and wages in her Illinois sample of child care staff, although others have found positive correlations similar to those reported here (Riley & Rodgers, 1989). Even when an association is found, however, it is quite weak. The more consistent finding in the literature links job satisfaction to internal aspects of the job such as the amount of challenge (Kalleberg, 1977), opportunities for helping

Child Care as an Adult Work Environment 63

others (Marshall et al., 1989), and the nature of the daily work (Jorde-Bloom, 1987). Although these were not the specific factors that predicted satisfaction in the current study, the results concerning paid preparation time and provisions for adult needs fit squarely within this literature.

Predictors of Turnover

To examine whether turnover rates were affected by variation in working conditions and job satisfaction, a hierarchical regression model was tested. Spe- cifically, 6-month turnover rates for teachers and assistant teachers were regressed on wages (step 1); retirement, health, paid vacation, and holiday benefits (step 2); merit increases, paid breaks, written job descriptions, cost-of-living increases, and paid preparation time (step 3); and the 14 job satisfaction factors plus career vs. job orientation (step 4). This model was run separately by staff position, because of earlier indications that the staff in lower positions showed higher job satisfaction.

As shown in Table 4, staff wages were the most important predictor of staff turnover among the working conditions and job satisfaction variables for both teachers and assistants. Timover rates were higher among staff in centers paying lower wages. Again, it is important to note that wages, although a significant predictor, only accounted for 3% and 17% of the variation in turnover for

Table 4. Regression of 6-Month Turnover on Facets of Adult Work Environment

Group Predictors Increase

Beta R R Z i n R 2 F

All staff Wages -.21

Job-career .21 Job satisfaction

Teachers Wages - .20 Benefits Working conditions Job satisfaction

Co-worker relations - .I0 Advancement opportunities - . I 1 Commitment -.I0

Assistant Wages - .27 teachers

.21

.42

. I6

.24

.31

.39

.42

.04 17.92* * *

. I8 .14 3.20* * *

.03 8.37***

.06 .03 3.87***

.09 .03 3.24***

. I6 .07 2.25**

.I7 2.50***

Nore. Ns are 516 for all staff, 320 for teachers, and 168 for assistant teachers. * p < .05. * * p < .01. ***p < .001.


teachers and assistants, respectively. In contrast to assistant teachers, for whom wages were the sole predictor of turnover rates, among teachers, benefits, working conditions, and job satisfaction each contributed significantly to the variation in turnover (3%, 3%, and 7%, respectively). However, the individual betas for the benefits and working conditions failed to achieve significance. With respect to satisfaction, co-worker relations, advancement opportunities, and job commitment were each negatively associated with turnover.

The staffs’ perceptions of their salaries as adequate and fair did not predict turnover, perhaps as a result of their uniformly low satisfaction with salaries. Jayaratne and Chess (1983) also found that actual wages, rather than satisfaction with wages, predicted turnover among child welfare staff. The reality of low wages, rather than low satisfaction with salaries, appears to make alternative jobs economically attractive and thus to encourage mover .

Associations Between Quality of Care, Working Conditions, and Job Satisfaction

To determine whether staff working conditions and job satisfaction significantly predicted variation in the quality of care received by the children in the centers, a two-stage regression strategy was used in which the Developmentally Appropriate Activities factor, and observed child-staff ratios and group sizes for each age-grouped classroom, were the dependent variables. The initial step involved determining the best predictor of quality from among three clusters of independent variables for the Activities factor (benefits, working conditions, and job satisfaction) and two clusters (benefits and working conditions) for the observed variables of child-staff ratio and group size. The best predictors from among these clusters (health benefits and merit increases, paid breaks, Adult Needs, and satisfaction with salaries and benefits) were then entered into a hierarchical regression model in which wages were entered as step I , followed by the benefits (step 2), working conditions (step 3), and job satisfaction (step 4) predictors. Table 5 presents the significant predictors for each of the outcome variables.

Teachers’ wages were the most consistent, significant predictor of quality of care from among all of the independent variables examined. In classrooms serving each age of children, wages predicted the developmental appropriateness of the activities and inversely predicted the observed ratios (higher ratios indicate more children per staff). The amount of variance accounted for by wages ranged from 17% to 28% for activities, and 1 1% to 21% for ratios. The regression model significantly predicted variation in group sizes only in infant classrooms; here wages again emerged as the most significant predictor, accounting for 13% of the variation in group size, and merit increases added 5% to the explained variance. The Adult Needs subscale of the Environment Rating Scales combined with

Child Care as an Adult Work Environment 65

Table 5. Regression of Quality of Child Development Environment on Facets of Adult Work Environment

Measures of Adult work child development environment Increase environment predictors Beta R R2 in R2 F

Infants Developmentally

appropriate activity

Ratio

Group size

Young toddlers Developmentally


Ratio

Group size

Older toddlers Developmentally


Ratio

Group size

Preschoolers Developmentally


Ratio

Group size

Wages Adult Needs

Wages Health benefits Merit increases Wages Merit increases

Wages Adult Needs

Wages Health benefits Merit increases None

Wages Satisfaction

Wages Paid breaks None

with salaries

Wages Adult Needs

Wages Adult Needs None

.20 .42 .I7

.40 .52 .28 . I 1

-.06 .34 . l l -.31 .47 .22 . I 1

.35 .56 .32 .I0 -.36 .36 .I3

.34 .42 .I8 .05

.37 .53 .28

.26 .59 .35 .07

-.32 .37 .14 -.24 .48 .21 .07

.21 3 1 .26 .05

.41 .45 .20

.35 .55 .30 .I0

-.39 .40 .IS -.24 .44 .20 .05

.39 .48 .23

.23 .63 .40 .I7

-.33 .46 .21 -.49 .63 .40 .I9

6.22** 4.71**

3.85* 2.24* 6.35** 2.45* 2.46*

9.68** 5.50*

4.11** 5.15** 6.89**

9.37** 3.64**

4.85; 3.58*

20.45 * * 30.53***

18.33** 30.53***

~~

Note. Multiple regression using classroom as the level of analysis. Ns are 85 for infant rooms, 78 for young toddler rooms, 73 for older toddler rooms, and 313 for preschool rooms. * p < .05. * * p < .01. * * * p < .001.


wages to predict the quality of the activities provided to the children for three of the four age groups (increase in R2 = 11% for infants, 7% for young toddlers, and 17% for preschoolers). For the two youngest groups of children, health benefits joined wages as a significant predictor of better (i.e., lower) child-staff ratios, and merit increases were associated with worse ratios and larger groups. For older toddlers only, higher staff satisfaction with salaries contributed posi- tively (increase in R2 = 10%) to higher quality activities, while paid breaks contributed to better child-staff ratios (increase in R2 = 5%).

In sum, centers that offered staff higher wages also provided higher quality care, as assessed from a child development perspective. The quality of attention to adult working conditions (Adult Needs and health benefits) also predicted higher quality care. Berk (1985) has also explored these links between the adult and child environments, without consideration of compensation however, and reported positive correlations between the staffs’ positive behaviors toward children and their career commitment and job satisfaction. As reported in Whitebook et al. (1990), turnover rates were negatively associated with child care quality and with children’s development in the sample of centers that constituted the work environments for the staff examined here.

Conclusions and Policy Implications

In the developmental literature, child care staff are typically examined only insofar as they may affect children’s well-being, with far less concern directed at their own well-being as adult workers. The results of this research highlight the importance of incorporating facets of the adult work environment in efforts to understand both dimensions of quality and the developmental consequences of child care. Staff that worked in centers that supported them with better wages and working conditions also provided higher quality environments for the children. These “adult environment” predictors actually showed stronger associations with child care quality than they did with job satisfaction and turnover, although, in general, a relatively minor proportion of the variance was accounted for.

This study also provided modest, but consistent, support for the longstanding contention that the unduly low salaries and meager benefits that characterize child care work are determinants of the high turnover rates that characterize this field. Wages were found repeatedly as a significant predictor of job commitment and actual turnover. Moreover, disaffection with child care work appears to increase as workers improve their status within their centers and earn higher wages. As these staff members appear to recognize, accompanying their advancement and increased education and training, the economic and status-related costs of remaining in child care increase relative to what other occupations offer.

These findings call attention to how little we understand about the processes by which wages affect turnover. Several reviewers of the turnover literature have

C u d Care as an Adult Work Environment 67

criticized the narrow models that have guided much of the research in this area (Mobley et al., 1979). Rarely considered, for example, are the workers’ perceptions and evaluation of alternatives to their current job. In the larger study from which this report is derived (Whitebook et al., 1990), for example, one of the study sites with relatively low tumover also had the highest unemployment rate in the study, indicating that fewer alternative sources of employment were available. Also largely ignored in the turnover literature is consideration of the workers’ values regarding their employment (Kalleberg, 1977; Mobley et al., 1979). Marshall and her colleagues (Marshall, Barnett, Baruch, & Pleck, 1989) have suggested that the value that adults place on “helping others” may moderate associations between wages, job satisfaction, and turnover.

The current findings also suggest that wages do not function alone to predict job satisfaction, turnover, and quality of care. While wages may provide a pre- condition for long-term satisfaction and tenure in child care, the adequacy with which centers provide supportive work environments for their staff is not unim- portant. Paid preparation time was a consistent predictor of job satisfaction, and for teachers, good co-worker relations and advancement opportunities were negatively associated with turnover. Centers that provided for adult needs, such as offering opportunities for professional development and separate adult space, in addition to paying higher salaries, also offered higher quality care.

An important question for future research involves determining how these intrinsic and extrinsic features of child care work interact to affect the stability and quality of care. Are staff who are less economically reliant on their child care salaries more affected by the intrinsic aspects of their jobs? Is there a particular wage level, below which even highly supportive work environments cannot min- imize turnover?

The most straightforward policy implication of this research is its clear indication of the value of increasing child care salaries as an avenue for improv- ing the stability and quality of center-based care. While salaries do not function in isolation from other facets of the adult work environment, they are a consistent predictor of job satisfaction, turnover, and more importantly, quality in child care. Efforts to raise salaries will also, however, create dilemmas associated with the need to keep high-quality child care affordable for families with modest incomes.

Increased salaries would ideally be linked to job qualifications and to the development of a career ladder in child care. Presently, staff in higher positions, and with greater education and training, receive only modestly higher wages than do their less advanced and qualified co-workers (Whitebook et al., 1990). Formal education, the strongest predictor of higher wages among the constructs of education, training, and experience (Phillips, Howes, & Whitebook, 1989), is the one least easily obtained by child care workers. New resources in the form of scholarships, educational stipends, and loan deferments are needed to enable


women in this poorly paid work force to obtain more education and training. Beyond wages and educational support, efforts to provide staff with profes-

sional development opportunities, paid preparation time, and health benefits would appear likely to have unconditionally positive effects on the quality and stability of care. However, the current results cannot answer the important question of whether these improvements, in the absence of salary increases, would have beneficial effects. Reduced-fee child care and merit increases present a more mixed picture as a guide to program improvements. They appear to exacer- bate concerns about equitable staff treatment and, in the case of merit increases, are negatively associated with quality of care.

Increasing demand for child care and concerns about its quality are now coinciding with high and rising turnover rates among child care staff. This troubling characterization of the current status of child care places pressure on researchers to decipher the factors that are contributing to staff turnover and to poor quality care. This research directs attention to the compensation and working conditions of the adults who provide child care as critical elements in our understanding of and efforts to reduce turnover and to improve quality.

References

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DEBORAH PHILLIPS is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. She received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Yale University in 1981. Subsequently she was a mid-career fellow at Yale Univer- sity’s Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, and she also served as the first director of the Child Care Information Service of the National Asso- ciation for the Education of Young Children. Her areas of specialty are communi- ty psychology, public policy, and developmental psychology, and her research has focused on the developmental effects of variation in child care quality.


CAROLLEE HOWES is an associate professor of education at the University of California at Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Boston University in 1979 and has published articles on children’s social development, particularly in day care. She is on the board of the California Children’s Council and the Child Care Employee Project.

MARCY WHITEBOOK is the Executive Director of the Child Care Employee Project. She received her M.A. degree in early childhood education from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976 and taught in early childhood programs for many years before starting the Child Care Employee Project. Her writings on issues pertaining to early childhood care staff have been widely published. She is a member of the Advisory Panel on Quality, Compensation, and Affordability of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

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