A Strategic Assessment of the Children's Services Industry

STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT OF THE CHILDREN’S SERVICES INDUSTRYReview and analysis of supply and demand dataOne of the factors currently limiting child and family-focused decision making around earlychildhood services is the paucity of rich, accurate data on supply and demand. In this sectionwe briefly review the strengths and limitations of existing sources and outline the need forricher, more fine-grained information about supply and demand.As outlined in earlier sections of this report, an increasing proportion of Australian familiesmake use of child care. The proportion of 0-4 year old children using formal child care hasgrown from 24 per cent in March 1996 to 35 per cent in June 2005 (ABS, 2006: 44). Over thistime period, women’s overall labour force participation has increased from 54 per cent inMarch 1996 to 57 per cent in June 2005. (The current rate is 58.4 per cent) (ABS, 2008a).Almost half the mothers of children aged 0-4 years are in paid employment (Davidoff, 2007).The female labour force participation rate varies across Australia: it is lowest in Tasmania(55.4 per cent) and highest in Northern Territory (68.1 per cent) as shown in Figure 5.1.Figure 5.1: Female Labour Force Participation Rate, Original, per centSource: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2008) catalogue 6291.0.55.001.Despite the growth of women’s labour force participation since the 1960s, Australian mothershave lower rates of labour force participation than their counterparts in many similarcountries. Women in the UK, USA, Germany, France, and Canada all have higher levels oflabour force participation. Jaumotte argues that the determinants of women’s labour marketparticipation include the availability of paid parental leave, flexibility of working-timearrangements, the taxation second earners, child care subsidies and child benefits. Australiaranks seventeenth out of the twenty OECD countries in its support for working mothers(Jaumotte 2004).Parental labour force participation rates have a complex relation to the demand for earlychildhood services. Parents use many combinations of care and education arrangements fortheir children depending on their family needs (Willer, et al., 1991, SCRGSP, 2008). Parentsusing Commonwealth supported children’s services overwhelmingly cite ‘work-related’42