Child Care on Campus: A True Partnership Between an Academic Program and Vendor

Abstract

Child-care services were provided for working mothers long before World War II. Some “company towns” provided these services to workers during the 19th century (Kamerman & Kahn, 1987). Although the specific content of these services may not have resembled what we now call child-care (e.g., group care in a single location), they assisted parents whose other obligations made it difficult for them to be with their children. Hernandez (1993, p. 152) has estimated that during the 1930s, over 300,000 infants and children (0–5 years) had both parents working full-time; these children required some form of child care. Over the years, the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor (1953, 1971, 1979, 1989) conducted detailed surveys of employed women’s need for child care and how it was being met. Out-of-home child care for working parents has been a small and sporadic component of employee benefits, except for occupations employing large percentages of women, such as apparel manufacturing (Collins, 1989; LeBlanc & Hennon, 1979; Perry, 1978). During the last 30 years, as women entered the workforce at-large in unprecedented numbers, child care has become a broad political issue affecting business, legislation, and child development researchers (e.g., Advisory Committee on Child Development, National Research Council, 1976; Hernandez, 1995; Krcmarik, Yang, & Fritz, 1994; Zigler, Kagan, & Klugman, 1983).