Location, Location, Location (NIEER)

 

  The current issue of the newsletter from NIEER centered on Child Care Deserts: An Analysis of Child Care Centers by ZIP Code in 8 States, authored by Rasheed Malik, Katie Hamm, Maryam Adamu, and Taryn Morrissey. Much well-deserved attention has been focused on how cost can inhibit access to quality early childhood education. But a new report by the Center for American Progress demonstrates that a family’s zip code can also be a hurdle. Looking at eight states comprising twenty percent of United States children under five years old, Child Care Deserts: An Analysis of Child Care Centers by ZIP Code in 8 States identifies “deserts” areas with either no child care centers or so few that children under five outnumber spaces by more than three to one–and the consequences for families living there.

While higher-income areas are associated with higher availability of center-based child care, the study states that a local shortage of quality center-based care in struggling communities can exacerbate the difficulties that low-income working families already experience.

     For working parents with young children, the task of finding child care can be daunting. Across the country, parents report frustration when trying to find affordable, high-quality child care. Yet, while the cost of child care is undoubtedly a barrier to child care access, the roles of supply and location are less understood. After examining the presence, capacity, and quality ratings of child care centers across Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, authors Rasheed Malik, Katie Hamm, Maryam Adamu, and Taryn Morrissey determined that forty-eight percent of the ZIP codes across those eight states are child care deserts. And that means any real solution to accessibility must focus on both the cost and the convenience of quality early childhood education. The essential points in the report are:

• Too many children live in Child-Care Deserts, and affordable, high-quality child care is beyond reach for many families.

• Forty percent of Americans in these eight states reside in Child-Care Deserts.

• Fifty-five percent of children in rural communities live in Child-Care Deserts and do not have access to high-quality child care.

The figure below gives us an overview of how ZIP code is used to define childcare

The Center for American Progress borrowed  The term “child care desert” from the frequently studied problem of food deserts. The government defines communities where residents do not live near affordable and healthy food retailers as food deserts. For this study, a child care desert is defined as a ZIP code with at least thirty children under the age of five and either no child care centers or so few centers that there are more than three times as many children under age five as there are spaces in centers. 

          The universality of these child care deserts means that it is crucial that the nation also invests more public resources in child care infrastructure and supply. The Economic analysis shows child deserts by local poverty. Most child care deserts are in areas with low or moderate poverty rates, using the official poverty threshold from the U.S. Census Bureau. 

          Somewhat surprising to me is how ZIP codes are used to locate areas with the highest poverty rates across the country. Furthermore, among those deserts with extreme poverty, more than half were in rural ZIP codes. So without a continued public commitment to providing educational support for families and children in urban poverty, these communities would likely not be served by the private child care market. 

         This report is insightful. It shows, most areas lack high-quality child care opportunities, and many daycare sites do not have enough child care center spaces. The presence of these childcare deserts shows that the United States faces a herculean crisis of child care availability far beyond the cost issue. The availability (supply and proximity) issue cannot be addressed without the right infrastructure investment in communities affected by childcare deserts. Policymakers must realize that the need for infrastructure investment in our roads, bridges, and public buildings is long overdue. They must allocate public resources toward improving the infrastructure necessary for high-quality child care and early childhood education. The administration is currently working with Congress to pass the infrastructure bill. The hope this bill will make a significant infrastructure investment in child care to address this critical need for American workers.

         Furthermore, the United States needs a complete overhaul of child care to build the supply of high-quality opportunities and make child care more affordable for families. 

                                                              References

Child Care Deserts. (2016, October 27). Center for American Progress.  

           https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2016/10/27/225703/

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