EXCERPTS
At least half of households that need childcare say there is an availability crisis, with the issue of cost coming second in parents' concerns.
The total prevalence of childcare use does not appear to have changed significantly over the decade to 2011, but its composition has shifted towards work-related care and away from non work-related care.
In every wave of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, parents who have used or thought about using childcare in the past 12 months are asked to rate on a scale of 0 to 10 how much difficulty they have had in the past 12 months with each of 12 aspects of obtaining childcare.
The HILDA report finds a consistent pattern of availability difficulties being the most common, affecting households of at least half the children in households where the parents had used or thought about using childcare.
"The next most common difficulty is cost, tending to affect half of children aged under six and 40 per cent of children aged six to 12, although the prevalence of quality difficulties is only slightly below the prevalence of cost difficulties," the HILDA report says.
...
- reprinted from The Australian