Child care statistics and facts

The number of Australian children attending child care has increased dramatically in the past few years, because of the growing number of working parents. This has led to an increased demand for child care places.

For many families, child care is a juggling act. Many use two or more forms of care – often a formal service, such as a long-day care centre, along with support from relatives, friends, nannies or babysitters.

In 2008, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, families of children aged 0-12 years used child care in the following ways:

• long-day care – 408 000 children (12%)
• before-school and/or after-school care – 253 000 children (7%)
• family day care – 71 000 children (2%)
• occasional care and other formal care – 35 000 children (1%).

Approximately 250 000 children attended more than one form of child care service each week. Reasons parents gave for this were that:

• there were limited hours available at the facility of their choice
• they wanted their child to have contact with other family members
• they couldn’t afford to use more formal child care
• having two forms of care was more convenient to the family
• they wanted their child to experience a variety of situations and relationships.

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