ABSTRACT
Most of my research, and that with which I am most familiar, emphasizes the effects of child care on children (see Clarke-Stewart, this volume). My colleagues and I, as developmental psychologists, tend to be most interested in the developmental effects of variation in the quality of care, although the type of care and timing of entry into care have also received some empirical attention. The sociological literature, in contrast, typically addresses how market factors, such as the supply and costs of child care, affect women' s labor-force participation, child-care choices, and fertility (Mason & Duberstein, this volume). There is very little interface between these two literatures. This means, for example, that sociologists tend to sidestep questions regarding the quality of child care, and that developmen-talists tend to ignore questions about how child care affects adults. Herein lies the significance of the Mason and Duberstein paper. Their proposed model begins to integrate the psychological and sociological literatures by attending to the type and quality of child care, on the one hand, and by examining the psychological effects of child care on adults, on the other.
