Mother’s Nativity and Children’s Transition into Non-Parental Childcare

Laquitta M. Smith, Arizona State University

Past studies have highlighted a variety of factors that affect mothers’ transition into various childcare contexts for their children. Factors such as employment status, family income and nativity status can play a role in these transitions. Most of the past research focuses on the transition to Head Start or center-based care, but to my knowledge, there is a paucity of studies that uncover the relationship between mother’s nativity status/ age at arrival and non-parental care, in general. The current study uses nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B) to model the effect of mother’s nativity on the timing of children’s first transition into non-parental care. This work is one of few studies that incorporate a nationally representative sample to examine the transition to early childhood care using an event-history approach. Preliminary results demonstrate differences across groups on the probability of this transition before children reach preschool age.