Number of Hours and Length of Time in Child Care

Parents of sampled children from birth through age 5 and not yet in kindergarten were asked the number of hours per week and the length of time their child participated in each current weekly nonparental care arrangement, including relative, nonrelative, and center-based care arrangements.

• Children spent more hours per week in nonrelative care (26.7 hours per week) than in relative care (24.3 hours per week) or center-based care (24.8 hours per week) (table 5).
• Children whose mothers were not in the labor force had spent less time in relative child care (3.4 months) than children whose mothers worked 35 or more hours per week (7.6 months), less than 35 hours per week (8.5 months), or were looking for work (9.6 months) (table 6).