On the Job
Helping children grow, learn, and gain new skills can be very rewarding. Preschool teachers and child care workers often improve their own communication, learning, and other personal skills by working with children. The work is sometimes routine; however, new activities and challenges mark each day. Child care can be physically and emotionally taxing, as workers constantly stand, walk, bend, stoop, and lift to attend to each child’s needs, interests, and problems. Child care workers must be constantly alert, anticipate and prevent trouble, deal effectively with disruptive children, and provide fair, but firm, discipline.
Opportunities for self-employment in this industry are among the best in the economy. About 37 percent of all workers in the industry are self-employed or unpaid family workers, compared with only 8 percent in all industries. This disparity reflects the ease of entering the child day care business.
The median age of child day care providers is 38, compared with 44 for all workers. About 21 percent of all care providers are 24 years or younger as opposed to about 14 percent for all industries (table 1). About 6 percent of these workers are below the age of 20, reflecting the minimal training requirements for many child day care positions.
Child care workers account for about 31 percent of wage and salary jobs, as well as a large proportion of the self-employed who care for children in their homes, also known as family child care providers. Regardless of the setting, these workers feed, diaper, comfort, and play with infants. When dealing with older children, they attend to the children’s basic needs and organize activities that stimulate physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development.
Benefits and Salary
In 2006, hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers in the child day care services industry averaged $10.53, much less than the average of $16.76 throughout private industry. On a weekly basis, earnings in child day care services averaged only $316 in 2006, compared with the average of $568 in private industry. Weekly earnings reflect, in part, the large number of part-time jobs in the industry.
Employee benefits in child day care services often are minimal. A substantial number of child day care centers offer no healthcare benefits to any teaching staff. Reduced day care fees for workers’ children, however, are a common benefit. Wage levels and employee benefits depend in part on the type of center. Nonprofit and religiously affiliated centers generally pay higher wages and offer more generous benefits than do for-profit establishments.
Experience & Required Education
Child care centers have staffing requirements that are imposed by States and by insurers. Although requirements vary, in most cases a minimum age of 18 years is required for teachers, and directors or officers must be at least 21. In some States, assistants may work at age 16—in several, at age 14. Most States have established minimum educational or training requirements. Training requirements are most stringent for directors, less so for teachers, and minimal for child care workers and teacher assistants. In many centers, directors must have a college degree, often with experience in child day care and specific training in early childhood development. Teachers must have a high school diploma and, in many cases, a combination of college education and experience. Assistants and child care workers usually need a high school diploma, but that is not always a requirement. Many States also mandate other types of training for staff members, such as on health and first aid, fire safety, and child abuse detection and prevention. Some employers prefer to hire workers who have received credentials from a nationally recognized child day care organization.
Read more about being a Child Care Worker or search jobs on EmploymentGuide.com
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