全球智库信息集成服务系统

Click here to view the full-size version of the interactive in this report.

In August 2016, Connecticut parents learned that the state’s child care assistance program, Care 4 Kids, would stop enrolling most children due to insufficient funding.¹ In a state where families can expect to pay more than $20,000 a year to send two children to a child care center, this news was devastating to many parents.² One such parent was Annunziata Zito, a mother with two children ages 8 and 3. Without assistance from Care 4 Kids, she thought she might have to quit her job, leaving her family living in poverty.³

Connecticut was an early adopter of a new federal requirement to extend eligibility for child care assistance to a full year.⁴ The change was based on evidence from child development experts that shows providing consistent child care is important for young children.⁵ Continuous access to high-quality child care promotes strong relationships and positive interactions with early educators, which in turn supports skills such as vocabulary, early literacy skills, and healthy behaviors. But with children staying in the program longer and no new federal or state resources, Connecticut could no longer enroll new children. In the year that followed, the number of children receiving child care assistance through Care 4 Kids was cut by more than 40 percent. This particularly affected parents with infants, who could not enroll their babies when they returned to work. After Care 4 Kids stopped enrolling new children, the number of infants and toddlers in the program dropped from 8,200 to 4,400.⁶

Connecticut’s experience was a bellwether for the country. For decades, federal and state lawmakers underfunded child care assistance, resulting in dwindling enrollment levels and fewer quality options for parents as the value of their child care voucher eroded over time. Congress took action in 2014 to improve quality, requiring minimum safety protections, such as background checks for child care providers, and extending eligibility periods for child care assistance.⁷ But without additional funding, these improvements exacerbated declines in enrollment for child care assistance. By 2016, child care assistance plummeted across the country and the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program served the fewest children in its 18-year history.⁸

While Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the nation, it is also one of the most unequal.⁹ The bottom 20 percent of households earn less than $30,000 annually, while the top 20 percent of households have incomes in excess of $140,000.¹⁰ One in 5 young children lives in a low-income working family, with at least one parent employed most of the year.¹¹ This means in Connecticut, families who most need child care in order to work cannot afford the high price of tuition without child care assistance.

In addition to affecting child care assistance, Care 4 Kids’ enrollment freeze affected parent’s child care options. Connecticut’s child care supply dwindled as 250 family child care homes and 140 child care centers shut their doors.¹² In wealthier towns where families could afford private tuition prices, the child care market remained strong. But in poorer cities and towns such as Hartford, New Haven, and New Britain—where average incomes hover below $40,000 a year—child care programs were hit hard when parents could no longer afford them. In fact, 10 months after Care 4 Kids stopped accepting new enrollees, more than half of the decline in enrollment accrued in the 10 lowest-income municipalities.¹³

Care 4 Kids ultimately reopened enrollment in November 2017, and enrollment levels have since then risen.¹⁴ A recent increase in federal funding gave Care 4 Kids a $14 million additional boost,¹⁵ allowing the program to increase enrollment, raise assistance levels for families, and expand the supply of infant and toddler child care.¹⁶

Connecticut’s experience underscores the importance of public funding in supporting access to child care programs and sustaining the supply of child care in low-income areas. In fact, Connecticut invests more per child in its child care subsidy system than most other states.¹⁷ But without a more robust public investment in child care, parents cannot afford the cost of care and supply declines in areas with higher concentrations of low-income households.

For too long, federal and state governments have underfunded child care, leaving many communities without licensed child care options. And such options are a necessity for working families: Two-thirds of U.S. children who have not started school have all parents in the workforce. At the same time, the cost of child care is out of reach for the average family; in most areas of the country, it exceeds the costs of rent or in-state college tuition.¹⁸

While the principles of supply and demand would usually suggest that child care providers would gravitate to underserved areas, the fact that providing child care costs more than most families can afford results in an imbalance between supply and demand. This market failure is especially problematic, because it affects children in their formative years when their experiences are shaping the cognitive, language, and socio-emotional skills that influence future learning.

Recent polling suggests that most parents struggle to find child care. Among parents with a child under age 5, 83 percent reported that finding quality, affordable child care was a serious problem in their area. Parents feel the impact of limited child care options in the work place: the same poll found that child care issues negatively affected the careers of three-quarters of parents with young children.

To better understand the U.S. supply of licensed child care and national trends in families’ proximity to child care, the Center for American Progress analyzed the geographic locations of licensed child care facilities, including centers and family child care homes. This analysis assesses trends in proximity to child care as one component of a child’s ability to attend a high-quality early childhood program. To describe this geographic proximity, in 2016, CAP introduced a working definition of child care deserts—areas with an insufficient supply of licensed child care.¹⁹ In 2017, CAP analyzed data from 22 states, covering two-thirds of the U.S. population.²⁰ This year, the analysis includes data from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and finds that more than half of Americans—51 percent—live in neighborhoods classified as child care deserts.

Other key findings from this year’s report include:

• Families in rural areas face the greatest challenges in finding licensed child care, with 3 in 5 rural communities lacking adequate child care supply. High-income suburban neighborhoods are the least likely to experience child care shortages.
• Hispanic/Latino families disproportionately reside in child care deserts, with nearly 60 percent of their population living in areas with an undersupply of licensed child care.
• Child care deserts have, on average, maternal labor force participation rates that are 3 percentage points lower than those of communities where there is adequate child care supply.
• The prevalence of child care deserts varies from state to state, from fewer than 23 percent of Maine neighborhoods to more than 75 percent of Utah neighborhoods.

This report uses the definition of child care deserts established in CAP’s 2017 report, “Mapping America’s Child Care Deserts,” such that a ratio of more than three young children for every licensed child care slot constitutes a child care desert. (see Figure 1 for additional detail) This definition is derived from U.S. Census Bureau findings showing that approximately one-third of young children are regularly in the care of someone who is not a relative.²¹ When the number of licensed child care slots is insufficient to reach at least one-third of young children under age 5, the likelihood that parents face difficulty finding child care increases. This could affect employment decisions or force families to turn to unlicensed options.

Many parents face the difficult task of finding child care that is convenient to work or home and does not break the bank. This study builds on researchers’ understanding of why the child care search often involves stress, waiting lists, high costs, and compromises. Understanding the supply of child care is only one piece of solving the U.S. child care crisis: In addition to geographic proximity, families consider cost, availability of child care assistance, operating schedule, facilities, and preferred characteristics of the potential caregiver. Yet, while geographic proximity is not the only factor in the accessibility of licensed child care, the absence of licensed child care in a community often means it is not an accessible option for parents. Shedding light on who lives near licensed child care can serve as a catalyst for a broader conversation about making affordable, quality child care a reality for all families.

After detailing the CAP analysis, this report considers how to address the issue of child care supply without compromising children’s safety, as well as how to address the child care needs of underserved groups such as families with infants and toddlers, families with people with disabilities, immigrant families, and parents that work nontraditional hours. The report also recommends policy solutions to address access to high-quality child care options. Unfortunately, conversations about child care supply sometimes question whether safety regulations should be relaxed to lower costs and encourage more providers to enter the market. This would be a misguided approach to solving the problem; no parent wants their child in a facility that has not undergone proper inspection or in a setting with too many children present for adults to safely provide care. Instead, policymakers and advocates should identify ways to build the supply of high-quality options from which parents can choose by expanding public investment in child care and intentionally building supply across all settings.

For this report, the Center for American Progress collected and analyzed data on the location and capacity of licensed or registered child care providers in every state and Washington, D.C. These data were synthesized with estimates of the population, family income, and labor force participation rates in every one of the country’s 73,057 census tracts. This original and comprehensive analysis of child care supply at the census tract level finds that 51 percent of Americans live in child care deserts. This term, as used by CAP, is adapted from terminology applied to the problem of “food deserts.”²² In this report, the authors describe child care deserts as areas with little or no licensed child care capacity. As shown in Figure 2, the proportion of residents living in child care deserts ranges from 22 percent in Maine to 77 percent in Utah. For more information on the authors’ methodology, see the Appendix.

This analysis only includes licensed family child care homes and centers in the United States, though a significant number of families rely on relatives, friends, or neighbors for child care. This type of child care—known as family, friend, and neighbor care (FFN); kith and kin care; or license-exempt care— is a common child care arrangement for many families. (see text box for more information)²³ This study excludes FFN providers, because states typically do not keep records of license-exempt providers. And while understanding usage rates for FFN care provides a more complete picture of the child care landscape, it is not necessarily informative of overall child care supply. For example, a grandmother may decide to care for her granddaughter until she enters school, but that arrangement does not represent a slot that is available to other children in the community.

Click here to view the full-size version of this interactive.

Overall, rural areas have the highest concentration of child care deserts

For this report, each of the more than 73,000 census tracts in the country is assigned to one of three urbanicity types—rural, suburban, or urban—based on a measure of household density, which considers the number of occupied households per square mile.²⁴ Using this measure, about 20 percent of the population is categorized as rural; 25 percent lives in high-density urban neighborhoods; and 55 percent resides in suburban, medium-density neighborhoods. This estimate of the rural population is in line with other estimates of the proportion of Americans living in rural areas, including that of the U.S. Census Bureau.²⁵

Overall, rural census tracts are the most likely to be classified as child care deserts, with 59 percent of rural communities meeting that definition. This study is careful to include licensed family child care providers, as home-based child care is the most common child care setting in rural areas.²⁶ Nonetheless, there is a vast undersupply of child care infrastructure across most of rural America. While rural communities may have several home-based child care providers, many family child care homes are only licensed to serve between six and 12 children, which may not be able to meet demand.²⁷

Urban neighborhoods are also more likely to be child care deserts than not, with 56 percent of urban census tracts showing child care supply gaps. While suburban neighborhoods are relatively less likely to be child care deserts, about 44 percent of suburban families find themselves in neighborhoods with too few child care options, and waiting lists can still be common, particularly for infant and toddler care.²⁸

When these urbanicity categories are further broken down by the typical family income in each census tract, a more nuanced picture emerges. (see Figure 3) The authors assigned each neighborhood to a family income quintile, ranking all census tracts in the state by median family income. The 20 percent of neighborhoods in which the median family income is highest fall into the top income quintile, the next 20 percent are assigned to the next quintile, and so on, with the lowest median income neighborhoods in the bottom income quintile.

With this additional information, urban areas in the bottom income quintile have roughly the same rate of child care deserts as the average rural area. As shown in Figure 3, neighborhoods in the top income quintile are less likely to be undersupplied within each geographic category, and suburban areas in the top income quintile are the least likely of all neighborhood-income types to be a child care desert. Considering the public underinvestment in child care financing, it should not be surprising that the licensed child care market gravitates to neighborhoods with more families who can afford to pay full tuition.

Certain characteristics of cities make it challenging to accurately capture child care availability in urban areas. This study compares the population of young children who live in a given census tract with the availability of licensed child care slots in that area. However, census tracts in urban areas tend to be very small due to high population density, making it likely that many urban families use child care providers that are located outside of the census tract in which they live. These factors could lead to an over- or underestimation of the demand for child care in a given urban area. Because cities are so densely populated, an analysis specifically looking at urban child care supply must be hyperlocalized to fully understand the dynamics of the child care market in these communities.

Nonetheless, several conditions in urban areas likely contribute to a high concentration of child care deserts in low-income areas. While cities may have a high concentration of child care centers, employment opportunities, and public transportation, these amenities tend to be concentrated in wealthier areas and not necessarily available to all residents.²⁹ Child care is also costlier to provide in cities, because labor and real estate are more expensive. Home-based providers in urban areas often operate in apartment buildings or other high-density housing locations, which have less space and can accommodate fewer children than providers in rural or suburban communities. These providers must also address the concerns of their neighbors and landlords, who may not support a child care business in a shared residential setting.³⁰ Urban child care providers may also face barriers to finding space where children can be safely cared for. For example, children under the age of 2 typically must be cared for on the ground floor of a building so that they can be safely evacuated in case of an emergency.³¹

Hispanic/Latino populations disproportionately live in child care deserts

This study analyzes the proportion of each neighborhood’s population residing in child care deserts, using the race and ethnicity categories as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. (see Appendix for full details) The data show that the Hispanic/Latino population is highly overrepresented in child care deserts,³² as seen in Figure 4. It should be noted, however, that proximity to licensed child care does not necessarily mean that people have access to these programs. Each racial and ethnic group may face systemic barriers such as high prices, low wages, and historic disenfranchisement and discrimination.³³

Hispanics/Latinos are the fastest-growing racial/ethnic group in the United States; one-quarter of all children in the United States are Hispanic/Latino, and they are projected to constitute one-third of the child population by 2050.³⁴ Yet these families are more likely to live in areas with fewer child care options. All approaches to increasing the supply of child care in America will need to remedy the fact that child care seems to be consistently harder to find in communities with a high concentration of Hispanics/Latinos.

Child care researchers and advocates have long speculated that Hispanic/Latino families may have a cultural preference for informal or relative care over formal or nonrelative child care arrangements. The National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families investigated many of these assumptions and found that the perceptions of Hispanic/Latino parents, whether they are immigrants or native-born, on different types of child care arrangements are generally similar to those of black and white non-Hispanic parents. In an analysis of the 2012 National Survey of Early Care and Education, these researchers found that, for children ages 3 through 5, there was very little difference between Hispanic/Latino children’s participation in early care and education and the participation of children from other racial/ethnic groups.³⁵

However, among children younger than age 3 in low-income families, researchers did find significantly lower rates of participation in early care and education programs among immigrant Hispanic/Latino households when compared with native-born Hispanic/Latino households.³⁶ To that point, this study finds that children who live in areas with the highest share of foreign-born parents are about 13 percent more likely to live in a child care desert than those in who live in areas with the lowest share of foreign-born parents. Findings from this research also suggest that Hispanic/Latino immigrant and native-born households are more likely than non-Hispanic/Latino households to need care during nonstandard hours and to have a grandparent or teen living in the household.³⁷ This suggests that Hispanic/Latino families have uniquely diverse child care needs and preferences. For this reason, this study cannot conclude that higher rates of child care deserts in Hispanic/Latino communities are entirely attributable to lack of demand.

This study also finds that American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) families are likely to live in child care deserts. However, the census estimates used in this study only count people who identify as AIAN alone, which may undercount the total AIAN population. It should be noted that the AIAN alone population is much more likely to live on rural tribal lands than the 40 percent of AIAN people who identify as multiracial.³⁸ Because tribal lands are generally exempt from state licensing jurisdiction, these findings should be interpreted with caution. Many tribes do, in fact, license child care independent of state licensing systems, per the regulatory guidance offered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.³⁹ The authors did not solicit information on the location of child care programs licensed by tribes; thus, this study is unlikely to capture the full child care market in those areas.

The poverty rate for AIAN families with children under age 5 is estimated to be 74 percent higher than the rate for the rest of the U.S. population, underscoring the deep need for high-quality child care in these communities.⁴⁰ The child care needs of AIAN families are understudied, and additional research could provide information on how best to support these families and provide resources to tribal governments so that they can meet demand.

Child care deserts are correlated with lower rates of maternal labor force participation

Improving access to consistent and affordable high-quality early care and education accomplishes two important objectives: It promotes healthy child development, and it allows parents to work or to re-enter the labor force after taking leave. This applies to women in particular, as mothers traditionally spend more time caregiving than fathers do and are more likely to leave the labor force to care for children.⁴¹

In addition to looking at racial and ethnic patterns of child care availability, this study examines the relationship between child care deserts and parental labor force participation. The labor force participation rate measures the number of people who are currently employed or actively looking for a job as a proportion of all civilian, noninstitutionalized adults.⁴²