Jennifer Burns asked:


There are fours basic types of child care alternatives that can be provided by an employer: flexible benefits and spending options, referral services, child care consortium, and on sight facilities. Each of the options requires different amount of capital with flexible benefits and spending options taking the least amount of capital and on sight facilities being the most expensive. As such, the decision to implement either one or a combination of alternatives varies from company to company being a factor of labor force structure, company size, employee dedication, and external economic factors. As such, only general guidelines can be suggested as a solution to the problem.

Flexible benefits and spending options is the most easily integrated child care alternative, as it requires only a lump sump investment into the development of the benefits and options that can be used by single mothers, whereas implementation costs could be differentiated away by adding additional obligations on already working employees with fixed monthly payment. Even though this alternative is cheap to implement and is very effective, as it decreases turnover rates and improves job satisfaction, it is still not widely spread among companies throughout the country. Another positive aspect is related to the fact that the alternative can be used by mother of children of all ages and regardless of children needs for care and education. Consequently, this alternative can and should be implemented by every company that has at least any employee benefits available for its’ workers

Jennifer Burns asked:


There is a positive correlation between the costs and quality of child care services provided and the employment rate among women. Single mothers, as the most economically vulnerable part of population, are the most sensitive to child care costs. Even though federal government is undertaking steps to increase financing of child care services, it is unable to cover the needs of parents, who fall under the criteria to receive financial support. Going even further then this, while the employment rate is relatively elastic to child care costs, when it comes to speaking about financial support offered by government, funding must be increased by as much as 50 per cent to bring fruitful results. As such, federal spending on child care services proves to be relatively inefficient. At the same time, many mothers choose to remain unemployed due to other problems with child care services such as uncertainty in the quality of services received or choose to compromise entering low paid jobs with adjusted schedule. As such, governmental role in setting standards for child care services provided can hardly be overestimated. Consequently, solution to the problem must be complex that involves both private and public sectors.

To find a solution to the problem, one should start from a basic decision making model of a mother. In the model, it is assumed that mothers of children are seeking utility maximization through child services and goods, which are, in its’ turn, a subject to four major constraints: a money constraint that combines both labor and non-labor income; a production function of child care services, such as quality of it and the perspectives opened by it; child’s time constraint and, finally, mother’s time constraint. As such, solution to the problem should consider the stated above factors in order to maximize the utility and in such way decrease the barriers of entry into the labor market of single mothers. The solution should address all four critical factors in order to be effective for single mothers, as for one of the most vulnerable groups of population. The solution must be a combination of cost minimization approach, which could be realized through transfer to the free market of the child care sector. The solution should also increase the level of certainty among mothers and deliver quality work, which could be realized through governmental control by setting the standards of services delivered. Finally, the solution should consider the age of the children, as the major determinant of the time constraint of both mother and child.