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Who's Minding the Kids

U.S. Census Bureau October 2005: Brief Data Summary

• Nearly 12 million children under age 5 (11.6 million) are in some type of regular child care arrangement every week.
• About 6.4 million children under age 5 who are in some type of regular child care arrangement every week are in non-relative care (that's about 55 percent of children under age 5 who are in some type of child care arrangement).
• About 7.4 million children under age 5 who are in some type of regular child care arrangement every week are being taken care of by relatives (that's about 64 percent of children under age 5 who are in some type of child care arrangement). [The numbers don't add up to 100% because some children are in multiple arrangements during the same day or week. For example, a child could go to preschool in the morning and stay home with Grandma in the afternoon or, a child could go to preschool 3 days a week and stay home with Grandma two days a week].
• Of the 7.4 million children under age 5 in some type of regular child care arrangement every week who are being taken care of by relatives, 4.1 million (56 percent) are being cared for by their grandparent.
• Nearly 1 million (941,500) of the children under age 5 whose mothers are employed work nontraditional hours.
• Children under age 5 with employed mothers spent 36 hours, on average, per week in child care.
• Employed mothers with children under age 5 who were living in poverty relied to a greater extent on grandparents and fathers (about 29 percent each) than on child care centers (14 percent) or family child care providers (7 percent) to care for their children. Conversely, children in families above the poverty line were more likely to be in an organized child care center (23 percent) than with other relatives (10 percent).
• Nearly 2 million children between the ages of 5 and 11 are home alone between the time school lets out and their parents come home from work.

For more information, see the full Census Bureau Report or the Census Bureau's accompanying detailed tables.