Utilisation of Early Childhood Education and Care Services in a Nationally Representative Sample of Australian Children: A Focus on Disadvantage

Abstract

ATTENDANCE IN HIGH-qUALITY early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been shown to have a positive influence on young children's development and life chances, especially for those children from disadvantaged backgrounds. A number of government policies are in place, both internationally and in Australia, to support these children's use of ECEC services. But to what extent do Australia's most vulnerable children use ECEC? Drawing on data from Growing up in Australia: The longitudinal study of Australian children (LSAC) this paper demonstrates that children from a range of disadvantaged groups do use ECEC. However, based on more in-depth analyses using a Disadvantage Index, the paper also shows that children with multiple indicators of disadvantage were more likely to be in exclusive parental care, less likely to be using preschool and using fewer hours of care than their peers. These findings suggest that there may be barriers to ECEC utilisation for children and families for whom ECEC potentially has the most benefit.

Vulnerable children in Australia: Multiple risk factor analyses to predict cognitive abilities and problem behaviour

“…Sameroff et al, 1998). However, it differs from other studies on risk factors with a different focus and fewer risk factors analysed (e.g., Wong et al, 2014).…”

“…Whereas analyses with regard to vulnerable children in Australia have been reported recently (e.g., Brinkman et al., 2013; Gubhaju et al., 2013; Wong et al., 2014), this is one of the first studies to present results for a cohort of very young Australian children attending ECEC programs. In addition, the small cohort introduced later in the analyses consisted of children who did not attend an ECEC program in 2010, a group that is substantial in Australia in comparison to many other countries (Gilley et al., 2015; OECD, 2012).…”

“…Finally, there may be a ‘middle classing’ effect in the E4Kids study data. The selection of the vast majority of the children through their participation in ECEC programs is likely to understate the population of vulnerable children in the Australian population, on the basis that the most vulnerable children and families are less likely to participate in ECEC programs (Gilley et al., 2015; Goldfeld et al., 2016; Wong et al., 2014). This exclusion of more vulnerable children in the analyses on the basis of incomplete data remains as a limitation, and likely underestimates levels of risk and the association with child outcomes.…”

“…Another approach would be to ensure that vulnerable children in Australia have access to high-quality ECEC programs (Goldfeld et al., 2016). This is all the more important as this group of children is most likely to miss out on such programs (Wong et al., 2014).…”

“…Many risk factors have been identified and verified by researchers using large samples, for example in the US and Canada (e.g., Brownell et al., 2016; Sameroff et al., 1998) and first analyses in regard to risk factors have been conducted with 5-year-old Australian children (e.g., Brinkman et al., 2013; Harrison & McLeod, 2010; Wong, Whiteford, Rivalland, & Harrison, 2014). However, information about risk factors and their association with different child outcomes for Australian children before school entry is still not well developed, though some work has been undertaken at the Australian Institute of Family Studies (e.g., Gubhaju et al., 2013) and using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (e.g., Harrison & McLeod, 2010).…”