Mothers' work and child care

In “Mothers' Work and Child Care,” Julia B. Isaacs, director of the Division of Data and Technical Analysis of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Planning, She describes the strengths and weakness of the child care data in the main national surveys. Isaacs also examines the main data sources that HHS uses to measure the availability and quality of child care for low-income families: the Current Population Survey (CPS); the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); the National Household Education Survey (NHES); the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF); state administrative data collected by the federal government that include aggregate numbers of children receiving subsidies as well as some of the characteristics of those subsidies, such as type of provider and age of child; and state studies of those who have left the welfare rolls (leaver studies).