영유아 교육·보육비용 추정 연구(Ⅴ)

Abstract

This study represents the final installment in a 5-year research project, “Early Child Education and Childcare Cost Estimate Research”, conducted for examining the use status and policy needs of households with early children (infants and toddlers) regarding education and childcare services. The purpose of this is to explore possible support measures for households with early children, so as to alleviate their burden in terms of education and childcare costs, and to better address their needs. A brief summary of this study’s findings is as follows. First, with regards to the education and childcare costs of households with early children as of 2017, the monthly average total education and childcare cost (per early child) was 198,000 KRW. Second, with regards to the type of service used, 43.3% of the children used childcare centers, with average monthly costs of 69,000 KRW. 35.2% of the children were sent to kindergartens, with average monthly costs of 198,000 KRW. While only 3.7% of the children were sent to half-day (or longer) private academies, these were associated with costs that were much higher than other types of services, at an average of 735,000 KRW. The average total expenditure for hourly-based private education was 114,000 KRW, with the most frequently-used type of service being home-study exercise books and the costliest being hourly-based private academies. In the case of individual care services, children were put under care for an average of 5.6 hours per day and 4.8 days per week, with an average monthly cost of 537,000 KRW. Third, the per-household monthly average of total education and childcare costs was 289,000 KRW, with 28.7% of the households concentrated in the 0~100,000 KRW bracket. Chapter V presents the views voiced by parents of early children regarding policy support and cost subsidies for education and childcare services. First, early children of households who currently used a childcare center or kindergarten were found to usually spend 5~8 hours at the facilities, with 80.8% of parents responding that they had no intention of adjusting the current number of hours. Second, when asked about how they would cope with future increases in the cost of facility use, most (51.2%) parents replied that they would continue using their current childcare facility. Third, when asked about policies offering support for childcare and education fees, parents of early children responded enthusiastically, with 32.6% of respondents saying ‘strongly agree’ and 53.1% saying ‘agree’. Fourth, when asked about the policies that were needed, parents of early children gave highest marks (6.3 out of a 7-point scale) to ‘provision of more national / public childcare centers or kindergartens’ and ‘improvement of the service provided by childcare and education facilities’. Chapter VI presents the results of the AHP and the in-depth interviews with experts and on-site professionals, with the key findings being as follows. First, for the question (Model 1) regarding which policy should be prioritized in subsidizing education and childcare costs for households with early children, professionals responded that an integrated policy of childcare allowance was the most adequate (0.2513). For the question (Model 2) regarding the orientation of support policies for education and childcare services, professionals prioritized ‘better treatment of teachers’ (0.2695), followed by ‘provision of more national / public childcare centers or kindergartens’ (0.1776), out of the 14 possible policies. Second, in-depth interviews with on-site professionals revealed distinct differences in opinion between those working at national / public facilities and those working at private childcare centers or kindergartens. Based on the findings, in this study we proposed the following policy measures regarding education and childcare costs for early children to alleviate the burden to households and to enhance the efficacy of policies.