The Parents' Demand for Childcare surveys study the demand for childcare among parents of children aged 14 years and under. As such, they form part of the ongoing evaluation of the Government's National Childcare Strategy. The first survey was conducted in 1999, and formed a baseline survey for comparison with the second wave, which was conducted in 2001. A further wave is planned for 2004. Users should note that whereas the 1999 survey was conducted in England and Wales, the 2001 survey was restricted to England. The survey series was designed to investigate the use of childcare by parents and to explore the factors that influence their decision to use childcare and how these relate to their participation in the labour market. Specifically, the aims of the research are as follows:to establish the level of usage and take-up of childcare by parents with children aged 0-14to discover what influences a parent's decision to use childcareto assess the financial cost of paid-for childcareto assess parents' satisfaction with current childcare arrangementsto establish parents' unmet demand for childcareto identify parents' ideal childcare provisionto assess parents' knowledge of the availability of childcare in their local areato ascertain the extent to which their current childcare arrangements enable parents to take up paid work, education and training and what activities are associated with the use of childcare. The 1999 survey comprised two parts. Part 1 aimed to examine in depth parents' use of, views on and demand for childcare. Part 2 aimed to explore the influences which shape parents' employment decisions, and secondly to assess the factors which determine parents' decisions to use childcare, with a focus on affordability, but also with some consideration for other important influences, such as quality and accessibility. The dataset includes the following files: chday: the unit of analysis here is the day of the week - i.e. each case represents a combination of a selected child and the day of the week. child: the unit of analysis is the child - child level data have been used to investigate what factors determine the quantity and type of childcare received by individual children. Apart from questions asked about each selected child, other child level variables were created by allocating the relevant household variable value to each selected child in the household. For example, if a household's social class classification is 'III manual', i.e. CLASS=3, all the selected children in the household will have a value of 3 at CLASS. All selected children in part 1 of the survey are included. chsess: childcare session data. The unit of analysis is the childcare session, i.e. each case represents a childcare session each selected child had in the reference week. hhold: household level data. This file contains socio-economic characteristics of the household, e.g. household structure, employment, income, ethnic origin of parent, marital status of parent. p2hhold: part 2 household data, and includes only part 2 respondents, and all Part 1 and 2 respondent level variables. The unit of analysis is the household, if included in Part 2. provchld: provider child level data - the unit of analysis is the provider/child - i.e. each case represents a combination of a selected child and each childcare provider used by that child. If a provider was not used or no childcare was received in the previous year, the relevant variables have a value of 0 - e.g cases coded as 0 at SPR8 include those who did not use that provider in spring term 1998, as well as those who did not use that provider in the previous year. provider: this file includes all providers used by respondents in the past year, and the unit of analysis is the provider. Provider level data have been used to investigate issues which are specific to particular providers, such as the quality of childcare provided and its cost. Apart from questions which were asked about each provider, other provider level variables were derived by allocating the relevant household variable value to each provider used by that household.