Child Care Centers, an International Perspective

What is a Child Care Center?

A child care center is a place that is set up for the purpose of caring for young children, usually for a fee. Such centers target children who have no adults at home to look after them when parents are at work. The age of children can range from a few months to 5 or 6 years, that is, from infants to preschool. The original purpose of child care centers was to provide a safe place for children where they could receive custodial care while their mothers were at work. To qualify as a child care center, there must be a certain number of children being taken care of, and this varies from country to country.

Originally, children in child care came from blue-collar families. Today, more corporate and professional women are also placing their children in these facilities, with the decline of alternative family care arrangements and as quality of care improves. The decreasing trend in the extended-family system that once predominated in Asia has made child care centers an attractive alternative, especially for nuclear, dual-income, urban families. The institutions are becoming developmental centers, and in some [Page 238]countries, there is little to differentiate between a child care center and a full-day kindergarten.

Child care centers may provide full-day or half-day care. Full-day care can be as long as 12 hours, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., to allow parents to leave their children at the center before they start work and to fetch them after work. Half-day care provides a service to parents who work half- or part-time. Some also provide emergency care for a few hours or a short period, for instance, due to hospitalization or a crisis in the family. In some Asian countries, care may be provided for 24 hours. This means that the child may remain in the center overnight. Such centers cater to the needs of parents who work the night shift, and may be necessary for single mothers who have no other alternative child care support. Some children may also be left in the center over the week and be taken home only over the weekend; these are referred to as “baby hotels” in Japan and “boarding kindergartens” in China. Working parents find it inconvenient to send and fetch their children when they work long hours and travel long distances to and from work. There are concerns about the effects on children who are left in institutions like these for such long hours, in terms of both the quality of care and the deprivation of opportunities for bonding between child and family members, especially the mother.

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