”The effects of group daycare in the context of paid maternal leave and high-quality provision”.

This study has three purposes. One purpose was to study to what extent use of daycare centres in Norway for 18-month-old children was a function of a social selection process. The second purpose was to determine the impacts of daycare centres for 18-month-old children on the child’s levels of physical aggression and anxiety at 36 months. The third purpose was to assess the effect of family risk factors on the child’s levels of physical aggression and anxiety at the age of 36 months as well as to determine whether the type of childcare measured at the age of 18 months is capable of moderating this context. Family risk is an index of factors in the family, such as conflicts between parents, level of education or anxiety and depression in the mother, which are assumed to increase the risk of anxiety and aggression in the child.

The article reports five significant findings: 1) 84% of all 12-month-old children were taken care of at home, and there was no social selection with regard to choice of childcare for children at that age. 2) A strong social selection could be observed when the children were 18 months old, where there was a positive and statistically significant correlation between the mothers’ level of education and their use of daycare centres. The same significance of correlation applies with regard to family income. The higher the family income, the more often daycare centres are used. 3) 18-month-old children’s use of daycare centres had a very weak, yet statistically significant, positive effect on the child’s levels of physical aggression and anxiety measured at the age of 36 months. 4) There was a moderate effect of the overall goal for family risk factors on the child’s level of physical aggression measured at the age of 36 months as well as a modest positive effect of this on the child’s level of anxiety measured at the age of 36 months. 5) There was no moderating effect of day nurseries or daycare in private homes at the age of 18 months on the correlation between the overall goal for family risk factors and the child’s level of physical aggression measured at the age of 36 months.

Data material consists of individual data on children by mothers recruited to take part in a national longitudinal questionnaire survey in their 17th week of pregnancy in the period 1999-2006, collected from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). The selection consists of children whose mothers have taken part in data collections in their 17th week of pregnancy, their 30th week of pregnancy and six, 18 and 36 months after they gave birth. The survey includes 7,010 children who, when they were 18 months old, were registered to attend a daycare centre, as well as 9,855 children who, when they were 18 months old, were registered to be taken care of at home; a total of 16,865 children. The characteristics of the families (for example income of the family and the mother’s level of education) have been used as indicators for the use of daycare centres at the age of 18 months. The relevant questionnaire data was coupled with other register data and then analysed using regression analyses.

Bekkhus, M., Rutter, M., Maughan, B. & Borge, A.I.H. (2011). ”The effects of group daycare in the context of paid maternal leave and high-quality provision”. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 8(6), 681-696.