Family Choices of Child Care in Los Angeles County: Does Child's Health Matter?

Chi Chiao, University of California, Los Angeles
Laura Chyu, University of California, Los Angeles

The effect of child's health on child care choices has been a neglected area in child care research. While a large body of literature exists on how child care affects child's health and sociocognitive development, little is known about the directionality from child health to child care choice. The potential two-way directionality between child health and child care choices poses problems of endogeneity when attempting to isolate the effects of child health on child care choices. In order to examine this relationship, we use data from the Los Angeles and Families and Neighborhoods Survey on child's health at birth and current child care choices among children 0-5 years old and not yet in school. Preliminary results suggest that subjective evaluation has a marginally significant effect on regular use of care, and birth weight and subjective evaluation have a marginally significant effect on type of child care used.