forecasting the demand for child care arrangements

116 Pages·2015·18.98 MB·English

FORECASTING
THE DEMAND FOR
CHILD CARE ARRANGEMENTS:
A NEW STATISTICAL TECHNIQUE
GORDON CLEVELAND
Funding from the Child Care Initiatives Fund of the Department of National Health and Welfare is
gratefully acknowledged. Additional copies of the Handbook may be obtained from CH]LD CARE
2000, 297 St. George St., Toronto MSR 2P8 or from the Department of National Health and Welfare
in Ottawa. Cette publication est aussi disponible en francais. Addressez-vous au CHILD CARE
2000, 297 St. George St., Toronto M.SR 2P8 ou au Ministère de la Santè et du Bien-Etre à Ottawa.
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views or policy
of the Department of National Health and Welfare or of DIRECTION 2000.
PROJECT SPONSORED BY
DIRECTION 2000: DEVELOPING COMMUNITY DAY CARE
TORONTO
APRIL, 1992
© Gordon Cleveland
TABI OF CONTENTS
List of Tables ............................................................. ,, .......
iii
List of Charts ............................................................. .. .......
v
Acknowledgements .............................................................
vii
Executive Summary .............................................................
ix
CHAPTER
1. Introduction ...............................................................
2. Need, Preference and Demand: Current Methods of
Measuring the Desire for Additional Child Care
Facilities ................................................................... 5
3. A New Method of Measuring and Forecasting Parents' Choice
of Child Care Arrangements: A General Overview..., ...... 17
4 . How to Measure and Forecast Demand for Child Care
Arrangements: A Concrete Example ...................... .......
29
5. Getting the Measurement Right: Using Statistical Tests to
Improve Estimates of Child Care Choice .......................
5 5
6. Forecasting the Number of Mothers in the Paid Labour Force
Needing Some Type of Child Care Arrangement ........... 63
7. Concluding Observations ..........................................
6 7
APPENDICES
A . Computer Software and Hardware for Estimating Logit
Models ...................................... , ............................... 69
B. How to Use the 1988 National Child Care Survey .......... 77
C. Brief Review of Studies of Child Care Choice ................. 85
D. Technical Details of the Multinomial and Conditional Logit
Econometric models .................................................... 9 1
Selected Bibliography ..........................................................
97
Glossary .......................................................... , ................. 103

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1
Mixed Logit Estimates: Choice of Day Care Centre, Sitter, or Care by
Relative ......................................36
Table 2
Changes in the Probability of Choosing a Day Care Centre, Sitter and Relative due to
Changes in Explanatory Variables at Sample Means ........... 45
Table 3
Changes in the Predicted Percentage of Families Choosing a Day Care Centre, Sitter and
Relative due to Changes in Explanatory Variables ............. 47
Table 4
Policy Simulations on Full Data Set ...........48
Table 5
Percent of Families Choosing a Day Care Centre, Sitter and Relative as a Result of Changes
Designed to Increase the Demand for Daycare ............. 51
Table 6
Test Statistics of Model
Performance ........... 58

LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1
Predicted Probability of Day Care Choice by Two Parent Family, by Age of Child
and Day Care Price..... 43
Chart 2
Percent of Families Choosing a Day Care Centre, Sitter and Relative as a Result of
Changes Designed to Increase the Demand for Day Care ........... 52

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Child Care Initiatives Fund of The Department of National Health and
Welfare has supported the research, writing and production of this
Handbook from the beginning. Sharon Gribbon, Project Officer, and
Carol Levesque, Financial Officer, have been unfailingly helpful in
shepherding this project through the bureaucratic maze, and deserve my
warm thanks.
Doug Hyatt wrote Appendix A on Computer Software and Hardware, made important
contributions to Appendix B, and has provided insightful comment on the entire
penultimate draft. Morley Gunderson, Gordon Anderson, and Michael Denny have helped
improve my understanding of Iogit models and their interpretation. They should not be held
responsible for my use or abuse of this knowledge.
A Project Committee from various parts of the country has met twice,
has reviewed and commented on drafts of the material. Their
contributions have been collectively and individually invaluable and have
made this Handbook a different, and more readable, product than it
would have been. Lyse Frenette from Montreal, Brian Powell from
Ottawa, Jane Bertrand and Petr Varmuza from Toronto, Mary Humphrey
from Winnipeg, and Peter Ashmore from Vancouver deserve considerable
credit for their unremunerated but not unappreciated labours. My
thanks, too, to Sonia Ostrowska and Penney Kirby -- who helped
organize and staff the Project Committee meetings and who laboured
secretarially. Sue Colley provided advice, criticism, and much secretarial
labour, too.
Gilbert Bélisle has spent more time than perhaps he would have wished
learning the vocabulary of statistics and economics in order to transform a
document written originally in English into a very natural French translation.
He has been unfailingly efficient and co-operative in this endeavour.
This project, formally called The Child Care Demand Forecasting Project,
has been sponsored by DIRECTION 2000, a non-profit organization
which develops new day care services and provides research and other
services which contribute to the development of day care. Lorraine Duff,
as the Executive Member in charge of the project, has kept me on the
straight and narrow way, monitoring the progress of the Handbook,
signing cheques as needed, and ensuring the provision of reports to the
Board from time to time. Evelyn McKee has handled the financial side
of my relationship with DIRECTION 2000 with infinite patience and good
humour and considerable hours of labour. Sharron Richards and the rest
of the Board of DIRECTION 2000 deserve credit for their willingness to
champion a project which must have seemed occasionally to be only
distantly related to the concrete task of building a better system of day
care for our children. I hope the result will justify their trust.