A study of turnover among family day care providers

Children Today, March-April, 1990 by Margaret K. Nelson

The child care literature today is rife with reports about high rates of burnout and turnover among child care workers. These phenomena can have a devastating impact on children who are thereby deprived of enthusiastic and continuous care. The National Child Care Staffing Study, for example, states definitively that "turnover is detrimental to children" Children in centers with higher turnover rates spent less time engaged in social activities with peers and more time in aimless wandering; they also had lower Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test scores compared with children in centers with more stable teaching staff. High turnover rates among child care workers are also a problem for working parents who have the added burden of seeking new child care arrangements. And, as Whitebook, Howes, Darrah and Friedman note, "the annual exit of many trained and committed workers ... gnaws away at the morale of those left behind" In 1981 Whitebook et al. reported a study of staff burnout among child care workers. While acknowledging that a variety of perspectives could contribute to an understanding of burnout, they suggested that the source of this phenomenon-and therefore of turnovercould be traced to the working conditions of child care providers (particularly low pay, lack of benefits, and unpaid overtime) and to the job dissatisfaction these conditions produce. This study poses the question: Do the same, or similar, variables have an impact on burnout and turnover among family day care providers? Many studies have examined these phenomena among center-based workers and those in residential settings. Yet family day care is the site where the majority of very young children spend their days away from home: Twenty-three percent of children under the age of one and 27 percent of children aged one and two have non-relative family day care as their primary child care arrangement. in comparison, only 14 percent of children under one year and 17 percent of children aged one and two are in organized child care facilities.

These very young children in family day care are the ones for whom the continuity of care may be especially significant. Moreover, among these young children the consequences of turnover may be more severe than among children in center-based care; in the former case turnover will necessarily entail placing the child in an entirely new setting without even the benefits of a familiar peer group. Data Sources

To explore the factors leading to turnover among family day care providers, this study draws on three sources of data. First, turnover rates among family day care providers were assessed by comparing lists of registered family day care providers in Vermont for three consecutive years (I 986, 1987 and 1988).

Second, in the summer of 1986 a questionnaire was mailed to the entire population of 463 family day care providers identified by Vermont as registered in that state. This mailing yielded 225 responses (49 percent of the total). one year later information from the state list of registered providers was used to identify family day care providers who were no longer engaged in the occupation. A comparison of the responses given by the 170 providers who were still engaged in the occupation one year later and the 55 providers who had left the occupation serves as the basis for the analysis of differences between providers who leave and those who remain and, therefore, as the basis for the identification of factors contributing to turnover.

Third, in the summer of 1988 telephone interviews were conducted with 75 family day care providers who had left the occupation, and in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 women no longer engaged in the work. These data demonstrate how the women themselves understood the process of burnout and departure from the field. Turnover Rates

Recent studies suggest that among center-based workers turnover rates are increasing. In 1977 the turnover rate among the teaching staff of day care centers was reported to be 15 percent with 40 percent of all centers reporting no turnover in the previous year. 6 By 1989 the turnover rate among the teaching staff of day care centers was reported to be 41 percent, with only 7 percent of all centers reporting no turnover in the previous year. Among family day care providers as well turnover rates seem to be on the rise. In 1979 the National Day Care Home study found that one-quarter of the family day care providers were no longer providing child care one year later. A comparison of the lists of family day care providers for two consecutive years indicates that within one year 37 percent of the registered family day care providers are no longer in the occupation; after a second year, an additional 15 percent have left. Increasing turnover rates among family day cae providers, as among center-based workers, indicate a problem of serious proportions.

Among family day care providers turnover rates are different at different points in the occupational career: The highest rates are found among providers who have been in the occupation for three or four years; the lowest rates are among those who have been in the occupation two years. However, there are no statistically significant differences in number of years in the occupation between those who leave and those who remain, suggesting that number of years in the field itself does not determine turnover. Explaining Turnover The data from this study do not support port the argument offered by Freudenberger or Mattingly that burnout or turnover can be explained by the nature of the work itself. Rather than finding that the intensive interaction with children became less gratifying over time, 50 percent of those who had been in the occupation three years or less and 55 percent of those who had been in the occupation for a longer period of time said they were very satisfied" with their work. When interviewed in the telephone survey, some 62 percent of those who had left the occupation within the previous two years said the interaction with children was the most gratifying aspect of their work. Both in those interviews and in the more in-depth ones women talked about the great pleasures derived from believing that they were making a difference in children's lives, from being needed by both parents and children, and from the daily opportunities to watch children learn and grow. Repeatedly, the women stressed that the work with children was not the reason for leaving the occupation.