Abuse and Neglect in Nonparental Child Care: A Risk Assessment

Author(s): Leslie Margolin

Source: Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 694-704
Published by: National Council on Family Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/352744
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 LESLIE
MARGOLIN University of Iowa
Abuse and Neglect in Nonparental Child Care:
A Risk Assessment
Interviews were conducted with 982 mothers of
young children to assess factors related to chil-
dren's risk of abuse and neglect by nonparents
temporarily responsible for child care. The
strongest correlates of child abuse were caregiver
gender and age. Although males were responsible
for only 6.1% of nonparental child care, they
committed 40% of the child abuse. Adolescents
performed 8.5% of nonparental child care but
committed 44% of the child abuse. Children were
significantly less likely to be abused in a day care
center or preschool than in home-based child
care. The strongest correlates of neglect were the
child's age, the caregiver's age, and the child care
setting. Babies under the age of one year were
three times more likely to be neglected, adolescent
caregivers were twice as likely to be neglectful,
and as was true of child abuse, home-based care
was the setting with the greatest risk. Implications
for policy and future research are discussed.
Family scholars show increasing interest in how
children's functioning and well-being are affected
by their participation in child care (e.g., Belsky
and Steinberg, 1978; Clarke-Stewart, 1987; Phil-
lips, Scarr, and McCartney, 1987). Yet compara-
tively little attention has been given to the topic of
abuse and neglect by nonparental child care pro-
viders. Not only do we know little about how such
maltreatment is likely to occur, but also, the types
of nonparental child care that present the greatest
risk, and the types of children most vulnerable to
abuse and neglect, remain largely unknown.
Department of Home Economics, University of Iowa, Iowa
City, IA 52242.
694 Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (August 1991): 694-704
To address these issues, this study surveyed a
representative sample of 982 mothers living in a
Midwestern county (pop. 167,000) on the child
abuse and neglect their children may have experi-
enced with nonparents temporarily responsible
for child care. Before findings from this survey
are presented, we examine what is already known
about abuse and neglect by nonparental care-
givers.
PRIORLITERATURE
Studies of criminal populations have long noted
that many sex offenders molested children while
"baby-sitting" (e.g., de Young, 1982; Fehren-
bach, Smith, Monastersky, and Deisher, 1986;
Eaton and Vastbinder, 1969; Wasserman et al.,
1986). With regard to physical violence, a survey
of adolescent baby-sitters showed that as many as
a third reported spanking the children in their care
(Kourany, Gwinn, and Martin, 1980; Kourany,
Martin, and LaBarbera, 1980). Other studies
found evidence of abuse and neglect in licensed
day care. For example, Russell and Clifford
(1987) examined complaints logged in a day care
licensing bureau and found that 16.5% of the
complaints were of abuse or neglect. Endsley and
Bradbard (1987) circulated questionnaires to
mothers whose children were enrolled in licensed
day care and found that about 14% felt their chil-
dren had been neglected in day care and 2% said
their children had been abused. Using a similar
methodology, Fuqua and Labensohn (1986)
found that 35% of day care users said their chil-
dren had at some point received "inadequate su-
pervision," 6% indicated that the premises on
which child care was conducted were unsafe, 6%
Risks in Nonparental Child Care
indicated that physical abuse occurred, and 2%
said their children had been verbally abused. Fi-
nally, Finkelhor and Williams (1988) estimated
the rate of sexual abuse occurring in licensed day
care by examining cases substantiated through
child welfare investigation. Comparing the num-
ber of children who were sexually abused in 96 fa-
cilities with the number of children enrolled in
those facilities, they concluded that 5.5 children
were sexually abused for every 10,000 enrolled.
Margolin and Craft (1989) used investigative
reports from a statewide child protection agency
to show how common sexual abuse by nonrelated
caregivers was in comparison to other types of
caregiving arrangements. Their most impressive
finding was that caregivers categorized as "baby-
sitters" performed over 18%7of all sexual abuse
substantiated over a two-year period, a percentage
that exceeded all other categories of caregiver ex-
cept biological parents. Among baby-sitters, male
perpetrators outnumbered females by a factor
greater than four. This finding was used by Mar-
golin and Craft (1989) as evidence that caregiver
gender was a risk factor for sexual abuse. A simi-
lar line of reasoning was used to claim that care-
giver age was predictive of sexual abuse (Margolin
and Craft, 1990). Since adolescent child care pro-
viders were identified as sexual abuse perpetrators
more often than any other caregiver cohort, the
investigators concluded that children were at
greatest risk with adolescent caregivers.
The principal limitation to Margolin and
Craft's (1989, 1990) conclusions is that the investi-
gators did not control for participation in child
care. They asserted that male and adolescent non-
parental caregivers were "overrepresented" in
child abuse without first determining how much
child care males and adolescents actually per-
formed. A primary goal of the present study is to
answer the latter question. Thus, respondents
were queried not only regarding harmful and
neglectful caregivers their children may have had,
but on their normal child care usage. This was
done to assess whether some categories of care-
giver were responsible for more child abuse and
neglect, and whether some categories of children
were victimized more often, than their participa-
tion in child care would lead us to predict.
Following Margolin and Craft (1989, 1990),
this study focused on caregiver gender and age as
predictors of abuse and neglect in nonparental
child care. The child care setting and the child's
695
gender and age were also examined as risk factors.
The theoretical bases for this five-part focus are
summarized below.
RISKFACTORS
Caregiver Gender
Social historians have always portrayed males as
comparatively austere and ill-at-ease with children
(Aries, 1962; Flandrin, 1979; Stone, 1979). Theo-
rists, in turn, commonly trace these differences to
the asymmetric socialization of females and
males. Thus, for example, while girls learn very
early that their identity is fundamentally tied to
caregiving activity (Chodorow, 1978), young
boys, on the whole, receive little encouragement
or opportunity to become caregivers (see Bernard,
1975: 220-223; Fasteau, 1976; Fein, 1977). In this
respect, female socialization, stressing coopera-
tion, intimacy, and the verbalization of feelings,
appears singularly consistent with the develop-
ment of child care skills and nonviolent methods
of conflict resolution (see Chesler, 1986: 396-398;
Weitzman, 1984). By contrast, young boys' em-
phasis on aggression and toughness, playing
"good guys and bad guys," and games that have
combat as a central theme, appears maladapted to
their future success in child care (Pitcher and
Schultz, 1983).
Hypothesis 1: Male nonparental caregivers are
overrepresented in child abuse and neglect.
Caregiver Age
Developmental researchers have consistently
shown that caregiving skills and motivation im-
prove with age (Rogozin, Basham, Crnic, Green-
burg, and Robinson, 1982). Adult caregivers not
only have more "life experience" and child care
experience than adolescent caregivers (see Conger,
McCarty, Yang, Lahey, and Burgess, 1984), older
caregivers can be expected to be more empathic
(Hoffman, 1975; Kurdek and Rodgon, 1975),
more patient (Staub, 1979), and more responsive
to the societal norms associated with taking care
of others (Berkowitz and Daniels, 1963; Staub,
1972). According to Erikson (1950, 1968), adoles-
cents are also less confident and have a less stable
sense of who they are than adults. Thus, Philiber
and Graham (quoted in Zuravin, 1988: 91), ask:
"Can young mothers [or young nonrelated care-
 696
givers] be expected to understand the needs of a
child for stability and security when their own
needs are so similar?" While there may not be an
adequate test of how child care skills and motiva-
tion are linked to child abuse, there is evidence
that infanticide (Bugos and McCarthy, 1984) and
risk of abusing (Daly and Wilson, 1988) decline
with maternal age at child's birth.
Hypothesis 2: Adolescent nonparental care-
givers are overrepresented in child abuse and
neglect.
Child Care Setting
Child abuse in day care centers has probably re-
ceived more media attention in recent years than
child abuse occurring in any other setting; how-
ever, there is reason to believe that day care cen-
ters, along with preschools, are the environments
in which child abuse and neglect are least likely to
occur. On the one hand, a child care provider
operating out of her home or the child's home is
less likely to be registered or licensed, and less
likely to be trained or supervised, than a day care
center or preschool provider (Miller and Norris,
1988; Scarr, 1984). On the other, day care center
and preschool providers are more likely to have
regular contact with a peer group of child care
providers and, as a result, have more opportunity
for support and socialization. Consistent with
studies showing socially isolated parents with sig-
nificantly higher rates of child abuse and neglect
than other parents (see Starr, 1988: 133-134, for a
summary of this literature), other research indi-
cates that the individual caregiver working out of
a private home is less accountable to community
norms and is less likely to have what Kempe
(1973) called a "lifeline" during stressful periods
(Belsky, 1980).
Hypothesis 3: Nonparental child care pro-
viders in private homes are overrepresented in
child abuse and neglect.
Child's Gender
Many studies have examined child's gender in the
context of sexual abuse, almost always showing
females at greatest risk (see Finkelhor, 1986, for a
summary of this literature). However, child's gen-
der as a predictor of physical abuse, emotional
abuse, and neglect has not stimulated comparable
interest. This inattention appears to be due to the
Journal of Marriage and the Family
lack of differences in the overall rates of victim-
ization of males and females by their parents
(e.g., American Humane Association, 1988; Na-
tional Center of Child Abuse and Neglect, 1988;
Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz, 1980).1 Nonethe-
less, social stereotypes that portray boys as more
durable and self-sufficient than girls may lead
caregivers to assume that boys need less super-
vision than girls (cf. Weitzman, 1984). Also, if
boys are expected to play more roughly than girls,
they may be seen as more capable of handling
rough treatment from a caregiver (Pitcher and
Schultz, 1983).
Hypothesis 4: Girls are overrepresented in sex-
ual abuse by nonparental caregivers.
Hypothesis 5: Boys are overrepresented in
physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect.
Child's Age
Studies of child maltreatment by parents consis-
tently show that infants and toddlers are more
likely to be abused and neglected than older chil-
dren. The relationship between children's age and
risk of maltreatment can also be anticipated with
nonparental caregivers. This is because children
under three are more fragile than older children
and, hence, less capable of withstanding harsh or
indifferent treatment (Gelles, 1979: 35). They are
also less capable of communicating their needs.
As a result, their crying can be extremely stressful,
particularly when the caregiver has other children
she or he is attempting to calm down, putto sleep,
or organize into activities (Margolin, 1990). Stress
associated with taking care of infants and toddlers
is not diminished when the caregivers are nonpar-
ents. In fact, sociobiologists argue that nonpar-
ents' frustration is greater: if all living things have
evolved to enhance the survival prospects of their
descendents, then nonparents have no "ultimate
self-interest" in helping other people's children
get through difficult periods in their development
(Wilson and Daly, 1987: 217).
Hypothesis 6: Children under the age of three
are overrepresented in child abuse and neglect by
nonparental caregivers.
METHODS
Sampling Procedures
The target population consisted of mothers who
Risks in Nonparental Child Care
had given birth to at least one child during the
previous six years (May 1984 through April 1990).
Mothers were identified through certificates of
live birth located in the courthouse of a Midwes-
tern county. Equal numbers of mothers were ran-
domly selected from each month of the survey
years. Mothers with current addresses within the
target county were sent a letter of introduction in-
forming them that they would be telephoned
within the next two weeks for the purpose of an-
swering some questions about child care. Respon-
dents whose telephone numbers were unpublished
were sent a questionnaire by mail.
Since birth records for mothers who were un-
married at the time of child birth are sealed, a dif-
ferent sampling strategy was used to locate single
mothers. These mothers were identified through
birth announcements made in the newspaper serv-
ing the target county. Thus, mothers who an-
nounced the birth of their child but did not in-
clude the name of a husband were included in the
survey.
To control for seasonal variations in child care
(presumably, parents have different child care
needs in winter than in summer), the interviews
were evenly distributed over the survey year; one-
twelfth of the interviews were conducted each
month. Respondents were selected for each
month's interviews on the basis of the month they
gave birth: mothers who gave birth in April were
interviewed in July, mothers who gave birth in
May were interviewed in August, and so forth.
A total of 982 respondents, or 94%7of those in-
vited to participate, completed interviews. These
mothers had an average of 2.1 children, for a total
of 2,067 children. Approximately 16% of the
mothers were unmarried or separated. Eighteen
percent had their children out-of-wedlock. Re-
spondents' median family income was between
$30,000 and $40,000 a year.
Measures
Each mother in the survey was asked the follow-
ing question: "To your knowledge was one of
your children ever neglected or harmed by some-
one you had taking care of him (her)?" If the
mother answered yes, she was asked to give details
of the type of neglect or harm and the circum-
stances associated with the maltreatment. Respon-
dents were asked the age and gender of each per-
petrator, and the age and gender of each child
697
who was either neglected or harmed. Interviewers
also determined the relationship between the per-
petrator and child, and the type of setting in
which the neglect or harm occurred.
To establish a baseline of nonabusive child
care, respondents were asked to describe the
amount and type of child care they utilized during
the week immediately preceding the survey inter-
view. The hours nonparents had child care re-
sponsibility were specified for each of the previ-
ous seven days. The gender, age, and setting of
each caregiver were obtained along with the gen-
der and age of each child placed in his or her care.
Statistical Procedures
The primary assumption guiding the statistical
analysis was that, other things being equal, differ-
ent caregivers (e.g., males vs. females; adolescents
vs. adults; in-home providers vs. day care center
providers) have rates of child abuse and neglect
proportional to their duration of responsibility
for children. For example, if day care centers per-
form 20% of the child care in the target county,
then their expected share of child abuse and neg-
lect should be about 20%. Similarly, children of
different age groups should experience rates of
child abuse and neglect that are proportional to
the number of hours they spend in child care.
Thus, if children under the age of one utilize 20%
of all child care hours, it is expected they would be
the recipients of approximately 20% of the abuse
and neglect. Findings that conflicted with these
expectations were used to estimate the degree to
which specific categories of caregiver and child
were overrepresented in child abuse and neglect.
Pearson chi-squares were used to test the "good-
ness of fit" between the expected distributions of
child abuse and neglect and the observed distribu-
tions (see Hays, 1988: 768-773).
FINDINGS
The findings are presented in three parts, which
show, first, the distribution of normal child care;
second, the distribution of abusive and neglectful
child care; and third, the degree to which these
distributions correspond.
Distribution of Normal Child Care
Among the 982 mothers interviewed, 805 reported
 698 Journal of Marriage and the Family

using at least one nonparental caregiver during the
week prior to the interview. In total, 1,218 care-
givers were utilized during that time period. Since
the specific hours in which caregivers provided
child care were not noted in six cases, the final
sample comprised 1,212 caregivers.
As testimony to the dominance of females in
caregiving, males were more often identified as
sharing child care responsibility with a female (n
= 78) than as having independent responsibility
for child care (n = 58). In contrast, 945 separate
female caregivers were identified. Not only were
there far fewer male caregivers, but they took care
of children for much briefer intervals. Each separ-
ate male caregiver averaged 11.5 hours of child
care, less than half the 27.1 hours averaged by
each female caregiver. To calculate the most gen-
erous estimate of males' child care-an estimate
that would provide the most conservative test for
the hypothesis that males are overrepresented in
child abuse and neglect-males were given credit
for half the child care hours tallied by male and
female caregivers working conjointly. That sum
was then added to the number of hours accumu-
lated by separate male caregivers, a total that still
left males responsible for only 6.1% of the child
care (see Table 1).
Among the 1,051 caregivers whose age was
identified, 179 or 17% were under 21 years old.
Like male caregivers, adolescents not only repre-
sented a small minority of all caregivers, but when
engaged in child care, they watched children for
substantially fewer hours than other caregivers
(13.4 hours for adolescents vs. 29.4 hours for
adults). The majority of adolescent caregivers
were female (84%).
Eighty-one percent of all child care was con-
ducted in a private home, mostly by a nonrelative
(68%). Nineteen percent of home-based care
(15% of all child care) was in the child's own
home. Day care centers accounted for 16.6% and
preschools 2.4% of child care.
Child care was distributed fairly evenly by chil-
dren's age until they reached their sixth year, after
which there was a pronounced drop-off in usage
(see Table 1). Thus, children over six years old ac-
counted for only 9.97% of all child care. Among
children in this age category, six-year-olds (n =
50) accounted for 2.45% of total child care usage;
seven-year-olds (n = 61) accounted for 2.67%;
eight-year-olds (n = 45), 2.49%; nine-year-olds (n
= 21), 1.16%, 10-year-olds (n= 18), 1.09%; and
children over 11 years old (n = 7), .11%.
Finally, Table 1 shows that the child's gender
made only a small difference in child care usage:
girls used 3.5% less child care than boys.
Distribution of Abusive and
Neglectful Child Care
One hundred twenty-five mothers, or 13% of
those surveyed, said that one or more of their chil-

TABLE 1. DISTRIBUTION OF NORMAL CHILD CARE

Risk Factor n Mean Hours Total Hours Percentage of Child Care

Caregivergender
Female 1,032 26.40 27,003.80 93.92
Male 136 12.86 1,748.58 6.08
Caregiverage
Adult 872 29.40 25,633.36 91.46
Adolescent 179 13.37 2,393.58 8.54
Setting
Privatehome 966 26.97 26,048.73 80.96
Centeror preschool 234 26.17 6,124.53 19.04
Child'sgender
Female 651 24.11 15,695.96 48.27
Male 717 23.46 16,820.89 51.73
Child'sage
< 1 197 23.47 4,623.36 14.29
1-2 219 24.86 5,443.25 16.82
2-3 190 27.49 5,222.09 16.14
3-4 199 25.56 5,086.49 15.70
4-5 181 25.40 4,596.62 14.21
5-6 180 23.13 4,163.50 12.87
> 6 202 15.98 3,227.50 9.97
Risks in Nonparental Child Care
dren had been harmed or neglected by a nonpar-
ental caregiver. In eight of these cases mothers
were unable to document that the caregiver was
responsible for a specific violation. Although
these mothers observed disturbed behavior from
their children following child care, they were un-
able to piece together what happened. When the
latter cases were omitted, 117 mothers were left
who described 150 examples of abusive or neglect-
ful child care committed by 137 caregivers against
139 children. The discrepancy between the num-
ber of examples of abusive or neglectful child care
and the number of children who were maltreated
was due to seven children having been victimized
twice, and two having been victimized three times.
To review briefly the types of maltreatment de-
scribed, 8 children had caregivers who initiated in-
tercourse and other sexual activity with them.
There were 19 incidents in which children were
either spanked, slapped, bitten, kicked, squeezed,
burned, or shaken. Among the 16 children who
were emotionally abused, 8 were ridiculed or
threatened verbally, 4 received prolonged isola-
tion and restriction as punishment, 2 children had
their mouths taped shut to keep them silent, an in-
fant had water repeatedly thrown at her face when
she cried, and a three-year-old was forced to wit-
ness a child receive a beating.
Twenty-two children were injured in accidents
that could have been avoided if they were super-
vised adequately. For example, one child was
burned when she touched a curling iron, another
cut her foot on broken glass in the caregiver's
house, and a third burned her hands on a room
heater. In 14 instances children were not injured
but were placed in potentially hazardous situa-
tions. In two of these cases children were left at a
swimming pool without supervision and in two
other instances a doctor was not called when chil-
dren became acutely ill. For 49 children, the neg-
lect centered on caregivers' failure to meet chil-
dren's emotional and physical needs. These care-
givers kept children in isolated rooms, restricted
their movement, did not respond when they cried,
and generally ignored them. Diapers were not
changed; feeding and sleeping arrangements were
inadequate; and cleanliness was poor. Finally, 22
children had caregivers who were either asleep (n
= 3), intoxicated (n = 7), or not on the premises
(n = 12) when they were supposed to be on duty.
A quick perusal of Table 2 reveals that male
699
and adolescent caregivers appeared much more
prominent in accounts of child abuse than in ac-
counts of neglect. For example, more than 71%
of the sexual abuse and 42% of the physical abuse
was committed by males. Adolescents committed
83% of the sexual abuse and 47% of the physical
abuse. By contrast, males and adolescents were re-
sponsible for only a fraction of the neglect (8%
and 18%0,respectively). One of the most striking
differences in the distributions of abuse and neg-
lect was that children under the age of one repre-
sented 43% of all neglect victims but only 12%oof
all abuse victims. Girls were the predominant vic-
tims of child abuse (63%), but boys were the pre-
dominant victims of neglect (53%). Finally, the
amount of maltreatment attributed to day care
centers and preschools was fractional: only 7% of
the identified child abuse and 5% of the neglect
came from those settings. In comparison, 26% of
the abuse and 17% of the neglect took place in the
child's own home. The remainder took place in
the home of a caregiver not living with the child.
The question we now examine is whether these
percentiles conformed to what was expected on
the basis of children's participation in these types
of child care.
Factors Associated with Maltreatment
Males committed more than six times the child
abuse that was expected on the basis of the
amount of child care they performed. Although
they were responsible for only 6.1% of the child
care, they were responsible for 40% of the sexual,
physical, and emotional abuse. If males' child
abuse was proportional to their participation in
child care, they would have abused 2 children, not
16 (see Table 3). These differences are highly sig-
nificant, indicating that when time in child care is
controlled, male caregivers are much more likely
to be abusive than females. Such a pattern did not
carry over into neglect, where no differences were
found between male and female caregivers (see
Table 4).
Adolescents performed approximately 8.5% of
the child care that adults did, yet were responsible
for one-quarter of the abuse and neglect. In ef-
fect, adolescents committed more than five times
the abuse and more than twice the neglect that
was expected on the basis of their participation in
child care. Since these differences are statistically
 700 Journal of Marriage and the Family

TABLE 2. DISTRIBUTION OF ABUSIVE AND NEGLECTFUL CHILD CARE

Risk Factor Sexual Abuse Physical Abuse Emotional Abuse Neglect Totals
Caregiver gender
Female 2 (29%) 11 (58%) 11 (79%) 97 (92%) 121 (84%)
Male 5 (71%7) 8 (42%) 3 (21%) 8 (8%) 24 (167%)
Caregiver age
Adult 1 (16%) 10 (53%) 11 (79%) 84 (82%) 106 (75%)
Adolescent 5 (83%) 9 (47%) 3 (21%) 19 (18%o) 36 (250%)
Setting
Private home 8 (100%) 19 (100%) 13 (81%) 97 (95%) 137 (94%)
Center or preschool 3 (19%) 5 (5%) 8 (6%)
Child's gender
Female 6 (75%) 13 (68%) 8 (50%) 50 (47%) 77 (52%)
Male 2 (25%) 6 (32%) 8 (50%) 56 (53%7) 72 (48%)
Child's age
< 1 - - 2
(11%) 3 (19%) 45 (43%) 50 (34%)
1-2 2 (25%) 2
(11%) 3 (19%) 14 (13%) 21 (14%)
2-3 2 (25%) 3
(16%) 1 (6%7) 18 (17%) 24 (16%)
3-4 2 (25%) 6
(32%) 4 (25%) 13 (12%) 25 (17%)
4-5 1 (13%) 3
(16%) 1 (6%) 7 (7%) 12 (8%)
5-6 1 (13%) 2
(11%) 3 (19%o) 3 (3%) 9 (6%)
> 6 - - 1(5%) 1 (6%) 5 (5%) 7 (5%)
Note: Missing data on caregivers was mainly attributable to the presence of more than one caregiver at the time the
child was abused or neglected. For example, although eight mothers said their children were sexually abused by a non-
parental caregiver, only seven mothers were able to identify the perpetrator. In the eighth case, a 20-month-old child
was placed in the care of an adult male and two adolescent females. Examination at a child protection center revealed
that the child was sexually abused while in their care, but the child was not able to say which of her caregivers per-
formed the abuse, nor did any of the caregivers acknowledge responsibility.

significant, it appears that adolescent caregivers
present a greater risk to children than adult care-
givers.
Although 190o of all child care hours were
logged in day care centers and preschools, only
about 6% of all abuse and neglect occurred in
those settings. This indicates that each hour a
child spends in home-based care is more than
three times as likely to result in abuse or neglect
than each hour in a day care center or preschool.
Despite the attention given to sexual abuse in day
care by the news media, not one case of this type

TABLE 3. FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH ABUSE BY NONPARENTAL CAREGIVERS

Observed Expected Relative Risk

Risk Factor Abuse Abuse Observed Expected
Caregiver gender
Female 24 37.57 .64 x2 = 80.68
Male 16 2.43 6.58 df = 1, p < .001
Caregiver age
Adults 22 35.67 .62 x2 = 61.36
Adolescents 17 3.33 5.11 df = l,p < .001
Setting
Private home 40 34.81 1.15 x2 = 4.06
Center or preschool 3 8.19 .37 df = 1, p < .05
Child's gender
Female 27 20.76 1.30 x2= 3.63
Male 16 22.24 .72 df = l,p > .05
Child's age
< 1 5 6.15 .81
1-2 7 7.23 .97
2-3 6 6.94 .87 x2 = 5.90
3-4 12 6.75 1.78 df = 6, p > .5
4-5 5 6.11 .82
5-6 6 5.53 1.08
> 6 2 4.29 .47
Risks in Nonparental Child Care 701

TABLE 4. FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH NEGLECT BY NONPARENTAL CAREGIVERS

Observed Expected RelativeRisk

Risk Factor Neglect Neglect Observed/ Expected
Caregivergender
Female 97 98.62 .98 x2 = .44
Male 8 6.38 1.25 df = l, p > .5
Caregiverage
Adults 84 94.20 .89 2 = 12.93
Adolescents 19 8.80 2.16 df = 1, p < .001
Setting
Privatehome 97 82.58 1.16 x2 = 13.23
Centeror preschool 5 19.42 .26 df = 1, p < .001
Child'sgender
Female 50 51.17 .98 X2= .05
Male 56 54.83 1.02 df= l,p > .05
Child'sage
< 1 45 15.01 2.99
1-2 14 17.66 .80
2-3 18 16.95 1.06 2 = 76.66
3-4 13 16.49 .79 df = 6, p < .05
4-5 7 14.92 .47
5-6 3 13.51 .22
> 6 5 10.47 .48

was identified. Further, all cases of physical abuse
occurred in private homes, thus offering strong
support for the argument that day care centers are
less associated with extreme forms of maltreat-
ment than are the less formal arrangements found
in private homes.
The main caveat to the finding that children
are at less risk in centers and preschools is that the
level of expected maltreatment for these settings
may have been artificially inflated. Normal child
care usage (on which the level of expected mal-
treatment was based) was determined by asking
about child care utilization in the past week,
whereas the maltreatment question asked about
the whole lifetime of the child. Since the past-
week measure takes children at their oldest and
older children are more likely to be in centers and
preschools (52% of children in centers and pre-
schools were older than four years, while only
34% of children in home-based care were that
old), then center and preschool usage may have
been overestimated in relation to home-based
care. It is important to note, however, that there
may be an offsetting bias that produced an under-
estimate of maltreatment in home-based care. The
finding that 32% of home-based child care was
performed by relatives (for example, 287 grand-
mothers were identified as caregivers), but that
only 3% of maltreatment was attributed to rela-
tives, suggests that respondents were more un-
comfortable identifying a family member as one
who harmed or neglected their children. Since all
child care by family members was conducted in
private homes, the underreporting of maltreat-
ment by relatives would make home-based child
care appear safer than was justified.
Although most of the maltreatment (73% of
the abuse and 85% of the neglect) occurring in
home-based child care took place in the home of a
caregiver not living with the child, this was not
taken as evidence that children were at greater risk
in a caregiver's home than in their own home.
These percentiles approximated the level of mal-
treatment that was expected on the basis of the
proportion of home-based child care performed
in the caregiver's home (81%). Thus, it was con-
cluded that the location of home-based child care
was not associated with risk of maltreatment.
While it was predicted that girls would be over-
represented in sexual abuse, their overrepresenta-
tion in physical abuse was unexpected. Nonethe-
less, child's gender was not significantly associ-
ated with child abuse. No statistical differences
were noted in boys' and girls' risk of neglect.
There was no statistical association between
child's age and abuse. However, consistent with
Hypothesis 6, child's age was strongly correlated
with neglect. Children younger than one year were
three times more likely to be neglected than older
children.
 702
DISCUSSION
This study investigated factors related to
children's risk of abuse and neglect in nonparental
child care. Specifically, the effects of caregiver
gender, age, and setting, and child's gender and
age, were assessed. Although the data reported
here support the hypotheses that caregiver gender,
age, setting, and the child's age are predictive of
maltreatment, the exploratory nature of these
findings should be emphasized. First, the mea-
sures of abuse and neglect were crude, open-
ended questions designed to penetrate the range
of maltreatment occurring in child care. It is en-
tirely possible that many parents were aware of
violence or other maltreatment occurring in child
care but did not report it because it was not per-
ceived as either "harm" or "neglect." For this
reason, researchers should consider using stan-
dardized measures such as the Conflict Tactics
Scale (Straus, 1979) to reassess the risk factors
examined here. Second, the data are based on one
Midwestern county and, therefore, may not
reflect the incidence of abuse and neglect in other
regions. In this regard, a nationally representative
sample modeled after the research of Straus and
Gelles (1986) would greatly advance the precision
and generalizability of this analysis. A final caveat
is that perceptual biases on the part of respon-
dents could account for some of the findings.
Males and adolescents may be seen as more risky
caretakers, so that parents may be prompted to
check up on them more often, as well as to re-
member and label questionable practices. The
same bias may operate in favor of centers and pre-
schools, which, because of their "professional"
auras, do not come under the same suspicion.
These limitations cannot, however, gainsay the
evidence that female and adult caregivers, day
care centers and preschools, and older children
were significantly underrepresented in child abuse
or neglect. Convergence of these findings with
earlier studies by Margolin and Craft (1989,
1990), in which the nonparental caregiver's gender
and age were associated with child abuse, lends
additional support to the assertion that the char-
acteristics of the caregiver affect the probability
that child abuse will occur. It is also significant
that these findings did not depend on an analysis
of child abuse cases identified through child wel-
fare investigation but, rather, emerged from a
representative sample of families.
Journal of Marriage and the Family
Taken as a whole, these findings have implica-
tions for policy as well as future research. First,
they confirm that infants are more vulnerable
than older children, requiring stricter standards of
child care, such as lower caregiver-child ratios.
These data also indicate that male and adolescent
caregivers require more support, training, and
supervision than female and adult caregivers.
However, the finding that child care in private
homes is associated with maltreatment is not
necessarily an argument for higher standards for
proprietary home-based child care. This is be-
cause "home-based" child care, as defined in this
study, included child care by relatives and non-
relatives in the child's own home. Nonetheless,
since the type of private home (child's or care-
giver's) did not affect the association between
home-based child care and maltreatment, we con-
clude that home-based care, as a general phe-
nomenon, is associated with elevated risk. This
suggests that children's safety would improve if
the standards of home-based care were brought
into close alignment with those of day care centers
and preschools.
NOTES
This studywas supportedby HarryFrankGuggen-
heim and Universityof Iowa SpelmanRockefeller
Researchgrants.Thanksgo to Alice M. Atkinson,
Nancy Schroeder,and Kathy Cunneenfor assis-
tance in data collectionand to two anonymousre-
viewersfor helpfulcommentson an earlierdraftof
the article.
1. Wilson, Daly, and Weghorst(1983)observeda sex
differencein risk of physicalabuseat certainages:
boys wereat greaterrisk as toddlersand girls were
at greaterrisk at puberty.
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