Child Day Care Services and Parents' Satisfaction with Them

This article describes the arrangement of the day care of children from the point of view of a retrospective longitudinal study. In addition, the parents' satisfaction with day care arrangement is determined. More than half of the children entered day care during their first year of life. Family day care was the most common form of initial day care. More than half of the parents were completely satisfied with the initial period of day care. Two subgroups were found among the girls: one with long, stable day care relationships and one with much change in day care. Day care began somewhat earlier for boys than for girls, and most of them had relationships of average length. Day care was more stable in unbroken families than in other types of families. There was also a relation between day care and the mother's educational background: the higher the mother's educational level, the later girls were placed in day care.