The Effect of Childcare Services of Community on Utilization Ratio of Daycare Centers

Abstract

The purpose of present study is to investigate the influence of childcare services of community on the utilization ratio of daycare centers. Data for present study were drawn from multiple sources. The information of 43,909 daycare centers were drawn from the i-sarang Childcare Information Portal site (http://info.childcare.go.kr/) in January 2014. Community level indicators were drawn from the local statistics of 230 Si, Gun, and Gu in 2013. Childcare services of community were the number of daycare centers per every 100 children aged 0 to 4 years, the number of kindergarten per every 100 children aged 0 to 4 years, annual budget of home care allowance per every 100 children aged 0 to 4 years, the number of cultural facilities per every 100 children aged 0 to 4 years. Multi-level analysis were conducted to examine the utilization ratio of daycare centers by childcare services of community and characteristics of daycare centers. The main results of this study are as follows. The utilization ratio of daycare centers was positively related with the number of daycare centers per every 100 children aged 0 to 4 years and annual budget of home care allowance per every 100 children aged 0 to 4 years. In contrast, the utilization ratio of daycare centers was negatively associated with the number of kindergarten per every 100 children aged 0 to 4 year and the number of cultural facilities per every 100 children aged 0 to 4 years.