How to increase the fertility rate as well as facilitate female labor force participation at the same time is always the contested debate for Taiwan’s family policy. National data in Taiwan shows that 80% of children under age 3 are cared by mothers or other family members at home, and, only 60% of children between age 3 to 6 use non-maternal childcare services. Understanding the patterns and reasons of childcare arrangements prove to be one of the most important issues for addressing the debate.

Child care policies which adequately responding to parental childcare decision-making are important for shaping children’s early development, balancing parent’s (especially for mothers’) work and care needs, facilitating female labor force participation, as well as increasing the possibility of fertility rate. However, very few studies empirically analyze the factors contributing selections of childcare arrangements in Taiwan.

Existing researches from Western experiences suggest that parents make preschool child care selection decisions based on preference/ ideology (what they believe is best for their children), resource considerations (such as characteristics of parental education, family income, marital status, and family type), and institutional factors (such as quality, affordability, and availability of different childcare options). How about Taiwan’s parents, especially in East Asian culture context?

This study therefore aims to examine the distribution of childcare patterns, as well as the impacts of three sets of factors (ideology, resources, and policy) on parent’s selection of childcare arrangement by using national representative data from “Survey of Child Living Condition” of 2010 (N=5,000), and “Survey of Women’s Marriage, Fertility, and Employment” of 2006 and 2010 (N=10,000). Both Multiple-nominal Logistic Model and Multiple-Level Regression are employed for empirical analysis. Finally, policy implications will be discussed.