Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

A key goal of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Reauthorization of 2014 was to increase low-income families’ access to high quality and stable child care.  The law requires states to comply with new provisions that seek to improve the family friendliness of child care subsidy programs and increase the supply of high quality subsidized care.  The current study aims to inform implementation of the CCDBG Reauthorization by providing insight into subsidy clients’ reasons for leaving child care arrangements and their perceptions of child care exits—whether or not changes are desired and potentially lead to higher-quality care.  We address three research questions:  (1) What are the most common reasons parents give for leaving a child care arrangement?  (2) What are parents’ perceptions of their child care exits and reasons for leaving the arrangement?  (3) Do parents’ perceptions of child care exits differ by their reason for leaving?

This study uses data from the Illinois and New York Child Care Research Partnership Study, which included a telephone survey of 612 child care subsidy clients from four regions in New York and Illinois states and in-depth, qualitative interviews with a purposive sub-sample of survey respondents (N=85).  The survey was administered approximately 14 months after clients began receiving subsidized care.  We used survey data to address our first research question.  To examine parents’ perceptions of child care exits, we used qualitative interviews to examine reasons for leaving an arrangement and whether or not the change was planned or desired.

According to survey results, more than one-third of families stopped using their initial, subsidized provider.  The most common reasons for leaving were related to issues with the provider, including parents’ desire for a higher-quality setting and scheduling problems.  Other frequently reported reasons included: job loss, no longer being able to afford the provider (including due to a subsidy loss), and residential moves.  Themes from qualitative interviews mirrored survey findings.  Most families who experienced a provider change also experienced changes in other domains, including housing and employment, which either complicated the current arrangement and forced a change or opened up opportunities to change to a more desirable arrangement.  A job loss and subsequent subsidy loss typically resulted in the termination of non-parental care altogether, and parents of preschool-aged children who left center-based care often lamented the lost benefit to children’s school readiness.  Child care changes that were not triggered by instability in other domains were often due to parents seeking higher-quality or a different type of care or a bad child-provider fit. 

These findings suggest that the new CCDBG requirements establishing a 12-month minimum eligibility period and a 3-month grace period following job loss should help to prevent undesirable care changes.  Additionally, efforts to increase supply and help parents find high quality care should reduce care instability if parents can initially find a provider with whom they are satisfied.  However, subsidy policies alone are unlikely to prevent undesirable changes that occur as a result of residential moves, job changes, and scheduling problems.