Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Mapping Supply and Demand of Child Care and Early Education Programs: Researcher Insights and Evidence-Based Policy Tools

(Family and Child Policy)

The mismatch between the childcare market and the heterogeneous needs of low-income families presents a critical public policy challenge. Parents struggle to find care that is affordable, proximate to work and home, developmentally appropriate, and open during parental work hours. One problem is market transparency: families lack information about available care options and the policies in place to facilitate program access. In addition to information asymmetries, the supply of affordable, quality care is insufficient to meet demand in certain geographic areas, and for subgroups of parents with nonstandard work schedules, infants and toddlers, and children with special needs. These challenges can result in families going without care or settling for a “good enough” arrangement in the short term that proves ultimately unsatisfactory to supporting parental employment or children’s development. Recent policy initiatives are aimed at reducing barriers to program access and increasing supply of high-quality, affordable care. Many states have developed Quality Rating and Improvement Systems to reduce information asymmetries and increase provider incentives to improve program quality. At the federal level, early childhood initiatives include competitive grant vehicles for expanding public preschool and improving program quality, as well as reforms to the standards and accountability mechanisms of Head Start. In addition, in 2014, the Child Care Development Block Grant was reauthorized with new provisions to increase the supply of quality care available to underserved populations and communities and reduce the complexity of administrative rules that contribute to access problems and program instability. With this background, the current panel is concerned with mapping the geospatial distribution of childcare providers with various characteristics and identifying key factors that shape differential access for low-income families. The panel consists of three papers, each describing a study of child care supply and demand in distinct geographic area(s). The first paper considers tradeoffs related to cost, quality, and distance, comparing the opportunities provided in the market to family characteristics related to children’s needs, income, and geography, using data on all licensed early care and education providers in Minnesota. The second paper focuses on four rural, urban, and suburban regions in Illinois and New York and examines the universe of licensed centers and family child care homes, together with all license-exempt subsidized homes, comparing the supply of providers with different price, distance, quality and schedule characteristics against potential demand. The third paper examines subsidized child care programs in Massachusetts delivered through two distinct mechanisms – voucher and contract, to assess whether and how the supply of voucher- versus contracted-providers varies locally and compares with local potential demand. The panel’s aim is to advance the use of evidence in policy decision making to make government more effective at serving the childcare needs of low-income families. One discussant will consider the papers vis-à-vis her experience developing a mapping tool designed to give decision makers access to information about local childcare markets and community demographic and public program characteristics. A second discussant will comment on efforts to reduce mismatches in supply and demand from a state policy perspective.