Undersupply or Lack of Demand? Evaluating Measures of Child Care Access.

Autor/in	Brown, Jessica
Institution	Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research
Titel	Undersupply or Lack of Demand? Evaluating Measures of Child Care Access. Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Unterangebot oder fehlende Nachfrage? Bewertung von Maßnahmen zum Zugang zur Kinderbetreuung.
Quelle	Esch-sur-Alzette (2026), 24 S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	IZA discussion paper / IZA Network @ LISER. 18597
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monografie
Schlagwörter	Demografischer Faktor; Kinderzahl; Familienpolitik; Öffentliche Förderung; Kinderbetreuung; Kindertagesstätte; Regionalforschung; Messung; Angebotsentwicklung; Nachfrageentwicklung; Arbeitspapier; Regionaler Faktor; Regionaler Vergleich; Verfügbarkeit; USA
Abstract	"The most widely used measure of child care access is "child care deserts," defined as areas with three or more young children per licensed child care slot. However, a high child-to-slot ratio may reflect low demand for formal care rather than a shortage. In the canonical model, equilibrium quantities perfectly reflect local demand and costs, implying that the ease of finding care should not vary systematically. In this paper, I use center based provider vacancy rates as a proxy for families' ability to access care. I test whether these vacancy rates are negatively correlated with child care desert status and with two alternative measures that adjust for community characteristics. The first alternative measure captures deviations between actual and predicted supply, where predicted supply is based on supply in areas with similar demographic characteristics. The second alternative measure is based on a more recent measure of child care access, the "child care gap." It compares the number of licensed slots to the number of young children with all parents working, a proxy for demand. Desert status is only weakly predictive of low center based vacancy rates, while the alternative measures are strongly predictive of low infant and toddler vacancy rates. These findings suggest that child care is more challenging to find in some areas, providing suggestive evidence of market frictions and a potential role for policy. However, identifying such areas requires adjusting low supply thresholds for local population characteristics." The study refers to the period 2018-2019 (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku).
Erfasst von	Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Nürnberg
Update	2026/4