Target Market

The use of early childhood education (ECE) and care arrangements varies according to a number of demographic characteristics. 

Preschool children who are European, from higher income families and from families with a sole parent in employment or two parents in employment are more likely to have ECE and care arrangements.  This need increases with the age of the child up to the age of five.

The changing structure of the family unit has led to more and more parents accessing childcare facilities and services.  The increase in the number of sole parent families and the lack of extended family support to take care of children has led to a greater dependency on outside assistance. 

As parents begin to value their independency, many 'stay at home parents' also use the services of preschool carers for their own 'time-out' or to give their children some social interaction with their peers.

School aged children who are European or Maori from higher income families, and from families with a sole parent in employment or two parents who were both employed full time were more likely to have care arrangements than other school aged children.

The demographics of parents using childcare facilities (including before/after school services) can be summarised below:

• Double income households (both parents at work) - generally in a higher income bracket, time poor, actively seeks information - want to be informed and make the 'right decisions' concerning their child, generally accesses Internet from home, generally European.
• Working sole parents - generally medium to lower income, time poor, needs easily accessible information, generally accesses Internet from work.  In sole parent families, the main caregiver tends to be the women.

• An emerging group accessing ECE and care arrangements are new residents to New Zealand who do not have extended family support. While the majority of these residents are parents of a double income household they generally tend to be of a medium to lower income range, actively seek NZ specific information, evaluates options carefully and requires detailed information which is easy to access and understand

Further potential markets includes:

• Overseas residents considering emigrating to New Zealand
• Ex-pat New Zealanders (with children) who are returning home
• Parents/mothers-to-be investigating childcare options prior to the birth of their child.

While ChildcareOnline primarily focuses on childcare options, the site also contains general parenting information and articles, further broadening the potential audience to:

• Any parent in New Zealand wanting information on a wide variety of parenting topics.
• Given the use of the World Wide Web there is the potential of any parent, world wide, accessing information about parenting topics via ChildcareOnline.