Service survey: Child care in five type municipalities 1993

This survey was carried out within the framework of the research programme ´Demokrati i förändring´. The survey was carried out in four municipalities; Grästorp, Kävlinge, Lidköping and Luleå, and in one district of Göteborg, Centrum. The choice of municipalities was made with regard to the classification of municipalities done in the citizen survey of the research programme, Local citizen survey 1991 (SSD 0306). The questionnaire was distributed to guardians of children aged 1-6 years. In one half of the cases women were requested to answer the questionnaire and in the other half men were requested. The questionnaire included questions on household composition, the child´s closeness to and access to grandparents, kind of child daycare, having the kind of child daycare one wants and to the extent and on hours wanted, and if one is queuing for municipal child daycare. Parents with child daycare outside of home were asked about: their confidence in and contacts with personnel working within the daycare; information about the child´s daily activities; opinions about distance to the child´s daycare and on the surroundings of the area where the daycare is situated; and opinion of the content of the activities. Furthermore there were questions about changes carried out within the daycare, if these were regarded positively or negatively, and if there had been enough information about the changes. The parent had to state how often she/he personally handed over to and collected the child from the daycare, stayed at home when the child was ill, gathered together spare-clothes, and participated in parent-teacher association meetings. The parent also had to state from whom one could get help minding the children on hours when the daycare is not available; use of the public open pre-school; and if the child participated in any group activity for children. A number of questions dealt with opinion on how public daycare ought to be worked out; economic aid to alternative daycare; economic aid to families with small children; distribution of daycare between various groups of children; and under what circumstances one is prepared to pay for daycare. The questionnaire also included questions on how often the child during the last six months had visited child health care centre, paediatric surgery, or casualty department; opinion of the distribution of medical care between various groups; and under what circumstances one is prepared to pay for medical care. The parents also had to state their opinion on local authority services in various areas; service areas most important to focus on and service areas possible to cut down; opinion on local authority service in general; and experience of their own contacts with local government officers within the child daycare department. Furthermore the respondents had to declare if they agreed or not in a number of statements about local authority services and taxes.