Study challenges childcare myths
New research has debunked some of the negative stereotypes of the impact child care may have on a child's development.
Experts from the Australian National University (ANU) have also found evidence that children in centres do better when there are more adult carers.
Many parents are traumatised each day when leaving their child in the care of someone else, afraid there are emotional and behavioural consequences of their decision.
But economist Andrew Leigh says parents should not sweat over it.
"We find that kids in day care are slightly worse on the behavioural outcomes, a few more temper tantrums, but nothing that looks to us to be massive," Professor Leigh said.
"So in some sense, what our study does is debunks both the radical views of the childcare debate.
"Child care is not child abuse, but neither is it a panacea for Australia's ills."
Professor Leigh says data gathered in a longitudinal survey of 5,000 Australian children who are now five years old has found they are only a "smidgen worse off" when not cared for at home.
He says a child in care is likely to have their development delayed by up to two months.
"This is pretty small bickies in the scheme of things," Mr Leigh said.
"You've got to remember that non-parental care also has substantial benefits for parents.
"The big expansion of day care has allowed women to keep in better touch with their jobs, not have to make a choice between motherhood and work.
"It's also important for Australian firms that have benefited from having smart young women able to stay attached to their firms.
"So all that's got to be put in context when thinking about the really small behavioural impacts that we observe in the study.
"My wife and I have a two-year-old who is in part-time day care and we certainly won't be taking him out of day care as a result of these findings."
Only last week a Senate inquiry into child care concluded that formal child care at a young age can place a child's social, emotional and behavioural development at risk.
Professor Leigh says his research did not find any long-term scarring effect on the children in the study group.
The ANU researchers also found that wealthy parents are more likely to think child care is bad for their kids.
Professor Leigh says the one measurement of quality that showed up is the importance of having enough staff to care for children.
"Kids in centres with more carers - with a higher carer-child ratio - seem to do better in day care than kids in centres which have fewer carers per child, bigger group sizes. So that's the one quality proxy that shows up," he said.
"Curiously we don't see any effect of accreditation or staff qualifications on the impacts of day care on kids."
Sue Lines represents childcare workers through the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union. She says this data further shows the importance of having the right number of staff.
"There is certainly a lot of evidence that shows that where there are more adults and less children that children benefit from that, that that goes hand in hand with good quality programs and high quality staff," Ms Lines said.
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) is meeting next week and childcare staffing ratios are expected to be on the agenda.