Journal of Student Research 2012

Parents’ Attitudes towards On-site Child Care

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child care, availability of care for sick children, satisfaction with child care arrangements, supervisor support, number of children under the age of five, and use of a child care center at work. The results concluded that on-site child care was not shown to reduce absenteeism. The study also determined that two variables were related to child care concerns: satisfaction with care and supervisor support. Research is limited that specifically addresses the benefits of on-site child care in the United States. Findings in the current literature included when and why parents would choose on-site child care (Connelly et al., 2002; Connelly et al., 2004; Goff et al., 1990), if parents valued the on-site care (Connelly et al., 2004), factors of child care satisfaction (Poms et al., 2009), and how a child care voucher program was used by employees (Morrissey & Warner, 2009). This current study aimed to contribute to the current body of literature in the United States. It specifically addresses student and worker performance, an extremely important aspect of on-site child care. Theoretical Framework The theory used to inform this study was the family ecology theory (Strong, DeVault, & Cohen, 2005). This theory assumes that families both impact and are impacted by their environment. The family ecology theory identifies four different environmental levels that impact the family. These include the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. Included in the microsystem are the immediate settings and people that an individual is influenced by on a daily basis. Interactions between microsystems create the mesosystem. For example, an ill child that needs care can cause a parent to miss work. The exosystem includes environments that influence the development of an individual, although the individual is not actively a part of those environments. An example of this is a spouse’s employment situation which could limit the hours of parent-child interaction, negatively affecting the child. The societal and cultural laws, attitudes, beliefs, norms, and traditions make up the macrosystem. An example of this is that a family’s cultural values may expect the mother to stay home and care for the children. As applied to our study, this theory would predict that a parents’ attitude towards child care would be impacted by many factors including the location and convenience of the child care facility. Parental attitudes would be affected by factors relating to on-site child care because according to this