Early Childhood Program Participation: 2019

This First Look report presents findings about young children’s care and education before kindergarten, including participation rates in weekly nonparental care arrangements, how well these arrangements cover work hours, costs of care, months spent in care, location of care, factors used to select a care arrangement, and factors making it difficult to find care. These data represent circumstances before the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions.

Selected Findings

• Approximately 59 percent of children age 5 and younger and not enrolled in kindergarten were in at least one weekly nonparental care arrangement, as reported by their parents. Among children in a weekly nonparental care arrangement, 62 percent were attending a day care center, preschool, or prekindergarten (center-based care), 37 percent were cared for by a relative (relative care), and 18 percent were cared for in a private home by someone not related to them (nonrelative care) (table 1).
• For the majority of children in weekly care, their parents reported that the care arrangement where the child spends the most time covers the hours needed for work very well (64 percent), as opposed to covering work hours well (21 percent), somewhat well (11 percent), or not well (4 percent) (table 2). • The mean length of time that children had been in their primary care arrangement was longest for children cared for by a relative (19 months) and shortest for children in a center-based care arrangement (14 months) (table 3).
• Among families with any out-of-pocket costs for their primary care arrangement, the per child hourly out-of-pocket costs were lower for children in relative care ($6.05) than in nonrelative ($7.75) and center-based care ($8.22) (table 4).
• The most common location for children’s primary center-based care arrangement was a building of its own (42 percent). Other reported locations were a church, synagogue, or other place of worship (20 percent); a public school (19 percent), and other locations (19 percent) (table 5).
• In choosing a care arrangement, the reliability of the arrangement was rated “very important” by parents of 87 percent of children in at least one weekly nonparental care arrangement, a higher proportion than any other factor, followed by the availability of the care provider (75 percent) and qualifications of staff (72 percent) (table 6).
• Among children whose parents reported difficulty finding child care, cost was most often cited as the primary reason for the difficulty (37 percent of children). Lack of open slots was cited for 27 percent of children, quality for 18 percent, location for 7 percent; and 11 percent cited other reasons (table 7).
• Among children ages 3 to 5 and not yet in kindergarten, 85 percent were read to by a family member three or more times in the past week. Smaller percentages of children had family members sing to them (73 percent); teach them letters, words, or numbers (67 percent); work with them on arts and crafts (46 percent); or tell them a story (38 percent) (table 8).