providing short-term care and respite assistance for parents) which accounted for
32 per cent. A further 11 per cent of children required preschool services (ABS 1992a:21).
Among those parents expressing an unsatisfied need for each formal service type more
than half in each case are currently using informal care arrangements: 58 per cent of
those expressing a need for outside school hours care, 59 per cent of those expressing a
need for long day care, 62 per cent of those expressing a need for family day care and
50 per cent of those expressing a demand for other formal care services currently use
informal care services (ABS 1992a:57). For parents who require formal services for
work-related reasons, the main reasons care is not currently used are that services do
not exist in the area, services are currently full or the cost of formal care is too high (ABS
1992a:19).
Further indications of consumer-identified need for services are occasionally collected
through other surveys. One example is the Housing and Location Choice Survey 1991,
conducted in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra for the National Housing
Strategy, which examined factors affecting the housing and location choice of
Australian households. Factors measured included the importance of access to a range
of services including child care services
About 8 per cent of families who recently moved in Sydney and Melbourne and who
had children in the 0-5 years age group, indicated that access to child care services was
an issue in their choice of housing location, with one-parent families placing slightly
more emphasis on access to these services than two-parent families (NHS 1991). A large
proportion of households which intended to move in the next 12 months indicated that
access to child care services was an important issue to be considered. A much larger
proportion of one-parent families (40 per cent) reported that as an important issue,
compared with two-parent families (28 per cent)