Almost 40 percent of nine month old babies are looked after by someone other than their parents for some part of 
the working day, new data from the ‘Growing Up in Ireland’ study reveals.
‘Growing up in Ireland’ is a longitudinal study of children in Ireland. It shows that of the 38 percent of babies who are not looked after by one or both parents each working day, 16 percent are looked after by relatives – mainly grandparents – 11 per cent are in centre-based care, and the remaining 11 per cent are looked after by a combination of au pairs, family friends and child-minders.
According to the study, a third of mothers (32.6 per cent) with children aged nine months do over 30 hours a week in paid work, while 43 per cent do no paid work. The figures show that 15.6 per cent of mothers of children in this age cohort work between 20-30 hours.
Infants in lone-parent families were much more likely to live with a grandparent than those in two-parent families. Almost a quarter (24 per cent) of lone parents with one child and 18 per cent of lone parents with two or more children reported that they lived with a grandparent.
The comparable figures for two-parent families were three (one child) and two per cent (two or more children) respectively.
The majority of mothers of infants, 71 per cent, were married and living with their spouse, but a further 15 per cent were cohabiting with a partner while 14 per cent were living alone without a resident partner.
Lone-parent families were much more likely to be in the lowest income groups, especially larger lone-parent families; 71 per cent of lone parents with two or more children and 52 per cent of those with one child were in the lowest income category.
This compares with 19 per cent of larger two-parent families and 11 per cent of smaller two-parent families.
Fifty three per cent of infants lived in families where at least one parent was in the professional/managerial social-class category. Approximately 37 per cent were in the non-manual/skilled manual category and the remaining 11 per cent were in the semi-skilled/unskilled manual group.
Two-parent families were much more likely to be classified in the higher social-class category (professional/managerial) than lone-parent families (55-60 per cent compared with 10-16 per cent).
