« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
CHAPTER TWO ATTITUDES TOWARDS SEEKING HELP AND/OR ADVICE
2.1 In order to measure attitudes towards seeking help and/or advice, from both formal and informal sources of support and advice, respondents were asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed with a set of statements. The statements and spread of responses are displayed in Table 1.
Table 1 Attitudes towards seeking help and/or advice by cohort
Base: All children
| Statement 1: | Statement 2: | Statement 3: |
|---|
"If you ask for help or advice about parenting from professionals like doctors or social workers they start interfering or trying to take over." | "It's difficult to ask people for help or advice about parenting unless you know them really well." | "It's hard to know who to ask for help or advice about being a parent." |
|---|
Birth (%) | | | |
|---|
Agree/Strongly agree | 9.6 | 25.3 | 22.2 |
|---|
Neither | 22.7 | 12.1 | 14.2 |
|---|
Disagree/strongly disagree | 67.7 | 62.7 | 63.6 |
|---|
Bases | | | |
|---|
Weighted | 5110 | 5210 | 5195 |
|---|
Unweighted | 5110 | 5210 | 5195 |
|---|
Child (%) | | | |
|---|
Agree/Strongly agree | 10.3 | 26.9 | 24.5 |
|---|
Neither | 24.4 | 13.5 | 15.6 |
|---|
Disagree/strongly disagree | 65.3 | 59.5 | 59.9 |
|---|
Bases | | | |
|---|
Weighted | 2791 | 2853 | 2848 |
|---|
Unweighted | 2791 | 2853 | 2849 |
|---|
2.2 Generally speaking, the vast majority of parents in both cohorts did not find it difficult to ask for help, did not have much trouble establishing who they should ask, and were not particularly concerned about 'interference' from formal services which provide support and advice. Parents were however, slightly less sure about the implications of taking advice from professionals than they were about the other two scenarios. Almost one-quarter of parents in both cohorts said they neither agreed nor disagreed with the first statement, whereas only around 12-16% gave this response for the other two statements. Concerns about the implications of help or advice from formal services varied by maternal education and household income: mothers with no qualifications and those from low-income households were more likely to agree that seeking help from professionals would result in interference than mothers with some qualifications and those from higher income households. This is explored more fully below.
2.3 In order to facilitate an analysis of the key drivers of positive and negative attitudes towards seeking help and/or advice, responses to the second and third statements were scaled to create a single index indicating how easy or difficult the respondent found it to ask for help. The scale ranged from 0 (indicating the greatest ease with asking for help) to 6 (indicating the greatest difficulty). By categorising scores on the index, it was possible to classify individuals as belonging to the 'have most difficulty', 'have least difficulty' or 'intermediate' group. On the basis of a logistic regression model, the following variables were shown to have the strongest independent association with having more difficulty asking for help amongst parents in the birth cohort (Table 2)
Table 2 Scaled attitudes towards seeking help by key independent variables: birth cohort
Base: Children in the birth cohort
Row percentages
| Have least difficulty asking for help | Intermediate | Have most difficulty asking for help | Bases |
|---|
% | % | % | Weighted | Unweighted |
|---|
All | 71 | 15 | 13 | 5191 | 5190 |
|---|
Attitudes towards help from professionals | | | | | |
|---|
Concerned about interference | 38 | 21 | 41 | 489 | 462 |
|---|
Not concerned about interference | 77 | 15 | 9 | 3453 | 3492 |
|---|
Parity | | | | | |
|---|
Sample child is first born | 73 | 15 | 11 | 2600 | 2545 |
|---|
Had other children already | 69 | 15 | 15 | 2591 | 2645 |
|---|
Equivalised annual household income 1 | | | | | |
|---|
Less than £8410 | 59 | 18 | 23 | 1000 | 929 |
|---|
Between £8411 and £13,750 | 68 | 15 | 17 | 963 | 947 |
|---|
Between £13,751 and £21,785 | 75 | 14 | 10 | 845 | 857 |
|---|
Between £21,786 and £33, 571 | 78 | 14 | 8 | 980 | 1013 |
|---|
More than £33,572 | 79 | 15 | 6 | 863 | 916 |
|---|
Mother's education | | | | | |
|---|
Higher grade or above | 75 | 15 | 10 | 3706 | 3772 |
|---|
Standard grade or equivalent | 66 | 15 | 18 | 974 | 937 |
|---|
No qualifications | 52 | 19 | 29 | 499 | 469 |
|---|
2.4 The starkest distinctions occur between those respondents who were more wary of intervention by professionals and those who were less wary. Indeed the regression analysis showed this to be the strongest predictor of having difficulty asking for help. Two-fifths of those who were concerned about interference from professionals were among the group most likely to report difficulty. Not surprisingly, given their related effects on wariness of professional support, significant variance was also evident by maternal education and household income. Mothers with no qualifications and those in lower income households appear to be less comfortable asking for advice than mothers with some qualifications or those in higher income households respectively.
« Previous | Contents | Next »