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CHAPTER FOUR CHILD FRIENDLY AREAS?

Introduction

4.1 Perceptions of the extent to which areas are 'child friendly' were explored in the 2005 Scottish Social Attitudes survey, which asked women aged 18-45 and men aged 18-49 how good or bad they thought the area they lived in was as a place to bring up children. There was a clear tendency for people in rural areas to view their area as more 'child friendly' in this respect - 93% of those in remote rural areas and 92% in accessible rural areas rated their area as 'very' or 'quite good', compared with just 58% in large urban and 78% in other urban areas who said the same.

4.2 There are a wide range of factors that might contribute to whether or not an area is seen as 'child friendly'. Many of these are not easily measurable - for example, an attitude of friendliness towards children among adults in the wider locality is not something that GUS is able to measure directly, since at sweep 1 we only interview the child's main carer. However, it is possible to use GUS data to explore whether or not children have regular access to key people (other than their main carer) who typically play an important role in contributing to well-being in children's lives, as well as exploring the availability of informal help and support (from family, friends and neighbours) for families with small children in different types of areas.

Access to grandparents

It is already clear that a larger proportion of rural children than urban children have daily access to a sibling, since more are second babies, as well as a larger majority having access to both a mother and a father. On the other hand, fewer children in remote rural areas have a grandparent living nearby - for example, 74% of babies in remote rural areas have at least one grandparent living within a 20-30 minute drive, compared with 84% of babies in large urban areas (Table 19).

Table 19 Percentage of children with at least one grandparent within a 20-30 minute drive by urban-rural

4.3 Regardless of geographical distance the overwhelming majority of children in GUS were described having a close or very close relationship with at least one grandparent (Table 20), although this was slightly lower in remote rural areas (86% compared with 93% in other urban areas among the birth cohort).

Table 20 Percentage of children reported as having a close or very close relationship with at least one grandparent by urban-rural

4.4 A high proportion of mothers of babies in Scotland, 66% overall, sometimes use grandparents as a source of childcare. As we discuss in the next section, this is just as common in rural as urban areas, despite the larger minority of babies in remote rural areas with no grandparent living nearby.

Access to informal support and advice

4.5 An absence of grandparents living nearby does not necessarily mean that mothers in remote rural areas lack any informal sources of support if a situation arises meaning that they need somebody to look after their child. When parents were asked whether they would find it easy or difficult to leave their child with somebody for a few hours, for a day, or overnight, mothers in rural and remote areas were not significantly different in their pattern of answers. For example, 42% of mothers from remote rural areas would not find it easy to leave their baby with somebody over night compared with 40% from large urban areas.

4.6 These questions were followed up by asking who would be called on first if such help were needed. While kin are the first choice for the majority across all areas, friends and neighbours were more likely to be called on first in rural areas (13% in accessible and 18% in remote rural areas, compared with 9% in large urban areas - Table 21). It seems likely that these are families for whom kin are not locally available.

Table 21 Who mothers or main carers would call on first when needing help

Note: This question was not asked of those respondents who said they would not leave their child with someone else in the circumstances covered.

4.7 Other GUS data suggests that mothers in rural areas are not disadvantaged in terms of their ability to draw on their informal networks for advice. For example, and reflecting the high levels of education in rural areas, rural mothers are if anything slightly more, not less, likely than urban mothers to have friends or family with medical knowledge or training whom they could ask for advice (Table 22). This was particularly true of the toddler cohort.

Table 22 Percentage of respondents/main carers who has any friends or family with medical knowledge or training from whom they would feel comfortable asking for advice

Contact with other children

4.8 The final set of measures scrutinised in this section concerns babies and toddler's contacts with other children. It is clear that babies and toddlers in rural and remote areas are not at all disadvantaged in this respect (Table 23). Indeed, given that 70% of toddlers in remote rural areas compared with just 60% of children in large urban areas are taken to visit friends with other young children at least weekly, children in remote areas may be more likely to have 'child-rich' environments (meaning environments where they have a high level of contact with other children) than babies and toddlers in urban areas.

Table 23 Frequency of toddlers being taken to visit friends with young children

4.9 Another very common way for very young infants to interact with each other is through a mother and toddler group. Mothers from remote rural areas and remote small towns were much more likely than those in large and other urban areas to have regularly attended such groups in the last year - 67% of mothers of in remote rural areas had regularly taken their toddler to such a group, almost double the 36% of mothers in large urban areas who had done so (Table 24). It is possible that there are more such groups in rural areas because of the relative lack of more formal childcare (discussed further in Chapter Five).

Table 24 Percentage who have regularly attended a mother toddler group in the last year

Conclusion

4.10 Overall, the GUS data so far do not suggest dramatic differences in the experiences of children in terms of the child friendliness of urban versus rural environments. There are some differences in the support on which mothers can draw on in children's care and therefore also, perhaps, of the amount of contact children have with adults other than their parents. However, the differences are not dramatic. Similarly, in remote rural areas a higher proportion of children may lack regular face-to-face access to grandparents. At the same time, it is important not to exaggerate this difference since the majority of young children in all areas still do have a grandparent living nearby. On the other hand children in remote areas are more likely to be taken to a mother and toddler's group and to visit friends with young children, and thus may possibly have relatively more contact with other children than their urban counterparts.

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