Economic Value for Being Working Parents: Family Revenue and
Daycare Cost Fulfillment
Ernawaty Ernawaty, Nuzulul Kusuma Putri, Ratna Dwi Wulandari, Dini Aftin Rahmadevi
Kampus C Integrated Daycare, Universitas Airlangga, Mulyorejo, Surabaya, Indonesia
Keywords: Young family, Care giver, Children, Economic value, Working parents.
Abstract: Most of young family experiencing about generating child while they are still in the early phase of career. In
this early step, family have to fulfil their living cost and additional cost that appear due to their predicate as
working parents. We analyse the economic value for being working parents to describe the working parents’
preference in the type of child care givers. Voluntary sampling technique was used to determine
sample size to be studied. Data collected by online quessionnaire or survey which given to 42
employees who affiliated with a biggest university in the eastern Indonesia. They were asked about
their total living cost including their cost on child care givers which expensed monthly. Both numbers then
proportionate with their revenue which then generated in a linier regression equation. This study revealed
that baby sitter is the best valued care givers among other. While young family still do not valued child care
givers as the important cost drivers in their expense. Surprisingly, they will consider rising up the children
by their own to avoid the extra expense in total living cost.
1 INTRODUCTION
It was noted that working parents especially young
families are burdened as the career stepper and also
the early parents. This group of employees are
reluctant to be late and hastily go home just for the
reason of babysitting. The existence of child care
givers in this group becomes more important. The
parents, especially the mother that working who
already has children will have a distraction of
concentration on the job because they have to take
care th child (Anon., 2015). The existence of
daycare becomes one of the support for workers in
college (Gault, et al., 2014). Many study about
young family mostly discussed about how balance
their life and their work, but rarely discussed what
this group experiencing according to their preference
of child care givers.
The Work-Life Balance study show up many
indication of organisation’s ‘work-life balance’
policies assist employees in balancing their work
and life responsibilities (Delina & Raya 2013). The
result of the study will provide any suggestion about
what should be improves in the organisation’s
policies to balancing the work-life of employee.
Rather than to only focus on the organization aspect,
we assume that organization should also analyse
how their employee values the care givers of the
children. By analysing this, organization will be able
to understand why employee retents with reason to
take care by their children.
Moreover, the lack of regular use of quality
measurement at child care givers and the
experiences that children have with their care givers
are very important (Emlen et al. 2000). They will
affect the development of children while parents
work (Bigras et al. 2012). Qualified care givers and
how parents should cost for this care will affect its
cost-effectiveness. It will describe the value of being
working parents.
Urgently overcome this dearth of information,
this study try to measure how young family value
their children care givers. We also analyse the
economic value for being working parents to
describe the working parent’s preference in the type
of child care givers.
2 METHOD
This is an exploratory study that conducted among
young family who affiliated in an organization. We
choose a biggest university in the eastern Indonesia
to be the case study. By using university employee
Ernawaty, ., Putri, N., Wulandari, R. and Rahmadevi, D.
Economic Value for Being Working Parents: Family Revenue and Daycare Cost Fulfillment.
In Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Indonesian Health Economics Association (INAHEA 2017), pages 367-370
ISBN: 978-989-758-335-3
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
367

as sample, we assume that the sample is already
having the same value about education for child.
This study using cross sectional approach for data
collection. Voluntary sampling technique was used
to determine sample size to be studied. Data
collected by online quessionnaire or survey which
given to 42 employees who affiliated with a biggest
university in the eastern Indonesia. They were asked
about their total living cost including their cost on
child care givers which expensed monthly. Both
numbers then proportionate with their revenue
which then generated in a linier regression equation.
We use slope and R
2
as the main indicator to
understand the value of child care givers.
1. Slope
The slope shows how the value of living cost will
affect the value of care givers. The positive slope
represents the improvement of cost of the care givers
when there is improvement in the total living cost. It
means that the value of care givers is still equated
with the other living cost. In this situation people
tend to change their preferences of care givers only
by considering the economic value. Care givers with
negative slope tend to be the care givers with the
highest value. People do not easily change their
preferences even though there is massive changing
in their total living cost.
2. R
2
R
2
represents about how strong the total living cost
ratio will affect the care givers cost ratio. The higher
number of R
2
show that the changing total living
cost ratio will more effect the care givers cost ratio.
It will describe how important givers care in the
family priority.
3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Table 1 describe the characteristic of the sample. It
shows that most of respondent are young family who
stay together daily. There are 18.6% who live
separately with their spouse due to different city of
work. Many studies explained about the lack of
emotional support to children in this kind of parents.
Moreover the staying together parents also have
their own problem. The distances of each other
office are become major issue for staying together
parents. This would bring possibility of high cost in
transportation and time consuming in way to reach
the children.
Table 1: Parents characteristics
Variables
n
%
Age
<25 years old
1
2.3
25-30 years old
23
53.5
31-35 years old
13
30.2
35-40 years old
5
11.6
Spouse age
<25 years old
1
2.3
25-30 years old
23
53.5
31-35 years old
13
30.2
35-40 years old
5
11.6
Space between
Staying together
34
79.1
Long distance
relationship
8
18.6
Office distance of staying together spouse
Near
2
23.3
Far
32
74.4
With those specific characteristic, every parents
have their own preference in take care of their
children daily while work. Most of young family
choose to ask the help of their extended family to
take of their children. Daycares remains the second
common care givers which preferred by the young
family. Only limited number of young families hires
the specific people to be the baby sitter. Any
attendance of other people at home mostly is by
servants that also give responsibility to take care the
children.
Table 2: Care givers and its cost
Variables
n
%
Daily Care Givers
Parents
5
11.9%
Servants
6
14.3%
Baby Sitter
1
2.4%
Family (grandparents/aunts)
15
35.7%
Daycare
11
26.2%
Others
2
4.8%
No answer
2
4.8%
Care Givers Cost
< Rp 500,000
14
33.3%
Rp 500,001 - Rp 1,000,000
18
42.9%
Rp1,000,001 - Rp 1,500,000
6
14.3%
Rp1,500,001 - Rp 2,000,000
1
2.4%
> Rp 2,000,001
3
7.1%
Min
Rp 0.00
Max
Rp 6,000,000.00
Mean
Rp 890,119.05
Table 2 explained that most of young family
spent not more than 1 million monthly to fulfil their
need in child care givers. This number considered as
low when compared to the amount of living cost
INAHEA 2017 - 4th Annual Meeting of the Indonesian Health Economics Association
368

ratio which explained in the next Figure 1. Young
family who do not expense at all in the child care
givers are family who already decided to takes care
their children by their self. One of the spouses
proposed to be only domestic mother.
Figure 1: Living cost ratios and care givers cost ratio
Figure 1 depicts the comparison between the
living cost ratios to the care givers cost ratio. This
distribution imply that family and parents as the care
givers have the lowest comparison to the living cost
ratio. Parents who choose to use daycares remain
have an equal comparison between their living cost
and their expense for caring their child (Peterson &
Peterson 1986). The highest comparison is the other
type of care givers. The other care givers could be
refers to full-day school or boarding school. This
high comparison could be representing that the cost
higher for the other parents in paying their child care
givers. Unfortunately, we could not explain more
about parents who choose the baby sitter due to
limitation number of sample.
Table 3: Linier regression
Care Givers
Linier Function
R
2
Baby sitter
y=-0.045x+0.079
N/A
Daycare
y=0.148x+0.007
0.559
Family
y=0.101x-0.001
0.132
Parents
y=0.025x-0.090
0.583
Servant
y= 0.206x+0.071
0.321
Others
y=-0.583x+0.5
1
Based on its liner function and R
2
, we can analyze
some main features:
1. Without any further analysis toward other type
of child care givers we can understand that the
highest value among that type is on the baby
sitter. Even there is a changing in the amount
of their living cost ratio; parents do not easily
change their preference to baby sitter. Even this
slope is not the highest, this is the only
negative slope generated. In the other hand,
extended family as care givers becomes the
least economic value among other. For the
young families in the middle economic level,
daycares become the best choice (Shpancer
2002).
2. According to the R
2,
caring their children daily
by their own becomes most priority in family.
Parents will be directly chosen their own
children if there are big change in their living
cost ratio. Job insecurity could be the most
predictor explaining this result (Delina & Raya
2013).
4 CONCLUSION
We can conclude that baby sitter is the highest
economically valued by young family. The lowest
one is existed in the family who choose their
extended family as care givers. Based on this result,
daycares is more suitable with the middle economic
value. Surprisingly, young family in this study will
considered to rise up the children by their own to
avoid the extra expense in total living cost.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would express our appreciation to Faculty of
Public Health Universitas Airlangga for the support
in this conference. Special gratitude we delivered to
the Ministry of Higher Education in as the main
backbone financially supporting the establishment of
the integrated daycares in Universitas Airlangga.
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