A Strategic Assessment of the Children's Services Industry

STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT OF THE CHILDREN’S SERVICES INDUSTRYTable 5.3. Number of Children aged 0-12 years, type of care by age of child, Child careSurvey (Usage)Children who used childcare^Children who don't usechild careAll children aged 0-12yearsUnder11 2 3 4 5 6-8 9-12 Total83.2 153.9 174.9 175.3 161.1 120.0 342.2 342.7 1553.3159.4 100.2 72.7 73.1 95.5 139.5 445.1 751.4 1836.9242.6 254.1 247.6 248.4 256.6 259.5 787.3 1094.1 3390.2Types of Care - FormalBefore and/or after0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.1 35.2 116.7 76.0 230.0school careLong day care centre 11.0 53.5 73.9 93.5 71.0 15.7 3.6 2.5 324.7Family day care 3.9 18.1 26.8 26.5 15.3 5.8 6.2 4.5 106.9Occasional care centre 2.0 8.2 12.8 14.3 9.9 0.4 1.9 1.9 51.4Other formal care 0.2 2.1 4.5 3.9 3.0 1.1 2.8 0.9 18.5Total Children in formal 16.7 78.8 114.7 132.7 97.0 56.6 130.3 84.8 711.5careType of Care - Preschool* 41.6 135.8 68.5 246.0Total Number ofChildren using Childcare and Preschool16.7 78.8 114.7 174.3 232.8 125.1 130.3 84.8 957.5Types of Care - Informal 71.3 108.9 105.7 94.2 99.2 84.2 254.6 286.2 1104.1% of Children using 6.9% 31.0% 46.3% 53.4% 37.8% 21.8% 16.6% 7.8% 21.0%Formal Child care% of Children using 29.4% 42.9% 42.7% 37.9% 38.7% 32.4% 32.3% 26.2% 32.6%Informal Care% of Children using All 34.3% 60.6% 70.6% 70.6% 62.8% 46.2% 43.5% 31.3% 45.8%Child care% of Children using 6.9% 31.0% 46.3% 70.2% 90.7% 48.2% 16.6% 7.8% 28.2%Formal Child care andPreschoolSource: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2006), CatalogueNumber: 4402.0^ In the 2005 Child care Survey, preschool was excluded from the definition of formal careor child care*Estimated by taking proportion of children using preschool by age from ABS (2006) table 24 from total andsubtracting the number who are using formal care Table 26Many children require additional ECEC services. During a period of four weeks, additionalformal care was required for 106,100 children aged 0-4, or 8.5 per cent of children that age(ABS, 2006: 30). Nearly half of these children needed long day care services, 6 mostcommonly for work related reasons (46 per cent) (ABS, 2006: 31-2). Availability was themain reason given for why children had not attended care that they required; 46 per cent saidformal care was booked out or had no places; cost was the main reason for 13 per cent.6 Note that preschool was not included in this survey as a type of formal care.48