12 OctChild Care in Australia Quarterly Report

Posted on 12 Oct 2022

The Child Care in Australia quarterly information report presents data for the September quarter 2021 and provides information about child care usage, services, fees, and subsidies in Australia including for states and territories. This report usually has a delayed release and will be interesting to compare to current statistics, especially now that Victoria and Australia have reached a new COVID normal.  

The key highlights from this quarterly report include:  

• the average hourly fee across all care types (excluding In Home care) was $10.55, reflecting an increase of 1.4 per cent since the June quarter 2021. 
• in the September quarter 2021, 47.7 per cent of children aged 0-5 years and 32.5 per cent of children aged 0‑12 years used approved child care. 
• average weekly hours per child across all service types was 26.8 hours. For Centre Based Day Care the average was 31.4 hours per child, or approximately 3 days per week. 
• by service type, 60.7 per cent of children in child care attended Centre Based Day Care (816,070), with Outside School Hours Care comprising 35.1 per cent (472,290 children) and Family Day Care 6.7 per cent (90,450 children). (Note: In Home Care has been excluded from all service type, state and usage analysis due to privacy considerations.) 
• during the September quarter 2021, 53,650 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children attended approved child care, up 3.7 per cent from the June quarter 2021. 
• across care types, Outside School Hours Care had the lowest average hourly fee ($7.50 per hour) while Family Day Care had the highest ($11.05 per hour). 

 This new data contributes to ELAA’s advocacy strategies. It supports our advocacy for:  

• providing two days a week of funded early education and care for all children from birth to school, thus increasing the number of children in approved early childhood education and care beyond 32.5%
• supporting centres to take on students for more days per week, particularly by advocating for an increase of services in childcare deserts and increasing teacher wages to manage the current workforce shortage
• encouraging a further increase in the access and attendance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children through supporting the rollout of more hours of ECEC funded by CCS.    

To read this report in full CLICK HERE.