An Approach to Modeling Child Care Decisions: How do Single Mothers Leaving Welfare Select Child Care and Decide Whether or Not to Use Subsidies?

摘要

This study addresses the need to understand how single mothers evaluate information, including the lack of information as applicable, about child care alternatives and financial assistance for child care.rnIn order to examine in depth the multitude of factors linked to the context in which decision making occurs, the research design for this study used a grounded theory approach including ethnographic interviews and decision tree modeling with 20 single mothers who recently left welfare and worked for at least two months. I organized the project around ethnographic decision tree modeling as the primary methodology, which drew upon and related to findings from ethnographic interviews with informants during a two-and-a-half-year period of fieldwork between December, 2002 and February, 2005.rnFindings suggest the level of trust between parents and child care providers, related to bad experiences with center-based care, and the availability of information about center-based care facilities were important decision making criteria.