The relationship between children’s development and the use of childcare: summary

• Childcare is recognised by policy makers as an important policy driver of both parental employment and of ensuring that children have the best opportunities to develop.
• This report outlines and discusses the findings of a research project which had the overarching aim of examining the relationship between children’s development at ages five and eight years, and the use of childcare at earlier ages among children in the United Kingdom (UK).
• The research drew on a large representative survey of UK households, the Understanding Society (USoc) survey, and involved statistical analysis of:
  • the use of childcare and of certain types of settings over time, and any differences in characteristics across children who did and did not attend childcare, as well as across those who attended different types of settings
  • the scores derived from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) on children aged five and eight years, aimed at assessing the socio-emotional behaviours and difficulties among these children
  • the relationship between children’s socio-emotional behaviours, measured by SDQ scores at ages five and eight years, and the use of childcare and of certain types of settings at earlier ages, and any interactive effects with household income as a measure of socio-economic background

Childcare use

• Relative to children who did not use childcare, those who did were more likely to live in households with higher average incomes and were therefore less likely to live in households placed at the bottom 25% of the gross monthly income distribution. This is in line with the literature explored in the report which evidences children from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds to be less likely to take-up childcare.
• Relative to children who did not use childcare, those who did had parents who were more likely to have higher education qualifications and mothers from the white ethnic group.
• Consistent with the relatively more limited time-use of working parents, children who did not attend childcare were less likely to have parents who both work in full-time employment, or at least one in full-time employment while the other is in full-time education. Among the children who did use childcare, those who mostly used formal group and informal types of childcare settings shared similar proportions of working parents, while those who mostly used formal individual settings ^{[footnote 1]} were significantly more likely to have working parents.

Children’s strengths and difficulties questionnaire scores

• Across all SDQ scores at both ages five and eight years, scores indicating fewer difficulties were more common. Children generally seemed to face greater challenges in the SDQ score associated with hyperactivity and inattention, but fewer challenges in the score relating to peer relationship problems. These patterns are consistent across scores taken at both ages.
• Comparing the distributions of scores across ages five and eight years, the generally wider distributions at age eight years suggests that there is greater variation within the SDQ scores among children aged eight, as well as higher scores which indicate greater difficulties relative to children aged five.

Children’s socio-emotional behaviours and childcare use

• In all analyses, no differences in average SDQ scores at ages five and eight years were found between children who did and did not use childcare at earlier ages, even when isolating this relationship and allowing for the interaction between childcare use and household income.
• However, differences in average SDQ scores across children who did attend childcare but within different types of childcare settings were evidenced. Descriptive analysis show that relative to children who attended mostly formal group and informal childcare settings, those who were mostly in formal individual settings had a significantly higher average in the emotional symptoms score, almost reaching the borderline threshold for high-risk.^{[footnote 2]} This suggests that children aged five years who received formal individual care at age three may have been more likely to develop symptoms of depression and anxiety relative to their peers who received childcare in formal group and informal settings. This result may reflect several factors, including the more limited interactions with peers and family members that children in formal individual care may have experienced at younger ages relative to children in alternative settings, thereby compromising the child’s secure attachment later in life, as discussed in Waldfogel (2000).^{[footnote 3]}
• Results from regression analyses which better isolate relationship between SDQ scores and childcare also evidence these differences. The results show that children who were in informal care settings at earlier ages faced fewer difficulties in conduct problems relative to children in formal individual care, but only among those whose households’ incomes were within the top 75% of the income distribution. In fact, children who used informal care settings but were from households within the bottom 25% of the income distribution actually faced greater peer relationship problems and prosocial behaviour challenges relative to children in the same income position but using primarily formal individual and group care settings. Furthermore, these children faced greater peer relationship problems and prosocial behaviour challenges relative to children in the same care setting but in households with incomes among the top 75% of the distribution.
• The literature explored along with the findings discussed highlight that the association between childcare use and children’s outcomes has complex underlying relationships and mechanisms. Conclusions drawn from the analyses must take into the consideration the data and methodological limitations, as well as the context the research focuses on.

Limitations and further research

• Limitations inherent within the data used in the study place further limitations on the potential reliability of findings, despite methodological choices taken in order to address these concerns.
• The methodological limitations which may interfere with the results of the analyses include the endogeneity^{[footnote 4]} of the choice to use childcare and to use certain types of  childcare settings, as well as the presence of measurement error in all characteristics, but particularly within the completion of the SDQ.
• These limitations may be ameliorated given the availability of longitudinal data that carries a sufficiently large sample size and/or a relatively low attrition rate, and also which contains more objective measures of child development and a rich set of child, parental, and household characteristics.
• The research carried out in the report has a scope for future research which may be concerned with the drivers of changes in the uptake of childcare over time, the country- and/or cohort-specific effects of the use of childcare on children’s outcomes, the impact of childcare on parents’ labour market outcomes, and whether and how this impact may differ from that on children’s development.

[1] These include childminder, nanny, au pair or childcarer in the home, and babysitter who comes to the home.

[2] Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A Research Note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38(5), pp. 495-597.

[3] Waldfogel, J. (2002). Child care, women’s employment, and child outcomes. Journal of Population Economics, 15, pp. 527-548.

[4] An endogeneity problem refers to a correlation between the independent variable and the error term in the model. Characteristics which are unobserved and so assumed away in these findings may correlate with both the choice to use childcare or use a type of childcare on one hand, and with measures of child development on the other hand (for example, socioeconomic status may be associated both with decisions around childcare use and with child development outcomes) As a result, any effects seen from the choice to use childcare may be partly down to these and other characteristics.

Report authors: Julia Diniz

Views expressed in this report are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of the Welsh Government.

For further information please contact:

Dr Jack Watkins
Equality, Poverty and Children Evidence Support Division
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: research.childrenandfamilies@gov.wales

Social research number: 52/2025
Digital ISBN: 978-1-83715-890-4