Patterns of Children’s Access to Early Care and Education Arrangements Through a Family-Centered Lens

• In Event: Early Childhood Education (ECE) Equity: Unpacking Racial Injustice in ECE Access, Readiness, Relationships, and Disparities

Abstract

ECE experiences are integral for providing children with a strong developmental foundation and supporting family employment, particularly among children from ethnically/racially minoritized and low-income backgrounds (Ilin et al., 2021; Lipsey et al., 2018; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Despite this evidence, the supply of ECE providers is scarce and varies substantially in terms of cost, quality, and services offered (Bassok et al., 2013; Gillespie, 2019; Malik et al., 2018). Due to these characteristics of the ECE supply, and because parents search for child care amidst a multitude of constraints, families face challenges and barriers accessing ECE (Weber, 2011). For this reason, ECE arrangements need to possess multiple features to be fully accessible for families. These include the dimensions of availability, affordability, supports child development, meets parents’ needs, and an equitably dispersed ECE supply (Friese et al., 2017; Thompson et al., 2020).
This study used a multidimensional and family-centered definition of access to examine (1) patterns of access-related features of children’s ECE arrangements, and (2) child/household characteristics that may be related to patterns of access. Using a large national sample of children from the ECLS-B, this study employed person-centered latent class analysis (LCA) to examine the construct of access among preschool-age children in non-parental care (Table 1). This study fills a gap in previous scholarly work by evaluating whether the construct of ECE access can be meaningfully captured using a comprehensive and multidimensional approach. Additionally, this study considered the ways in which access-related features of ECE arrangements co-occur, and child/household characteristics that are associated with families’ varied and potentially inequitable ECE access.
LCA model enumeration revealed three latent classes of children’s ECE arrangements along access indicators: (1) more accessible center care (34%), (2) moderately accessible home care (29%), and (3) arrangements that primarily support parents’ needs (37%) (Figure 1). These classes suggested that preschool-age children experienced different types of access and highlight areas of trade-offs families make to secure child care arrangements (Chaudry et al., 2010). Additionally, covariate analyses revealed several child/household characteristics associated with children’s assigned membership to latent classes of access that help explain areas of inequitable ECE access. Children who were Black, Hispanic, in a low-income household during preschool or an earlier wave of the study, in a two-parent household, and had a parent with a nonstandard employment schedule were most likely to be in more accessible center care (Class 1). Children in households where all parents were employed, and at least one working a nonstandard schedule were most likely to be in moderately accessible home care (Class 2). Children living in a non-English speaking household, in an urban community, and had two caregivers were likely to be in care that primarily supports parents’ needs (Class 3). This study provides evidence that the accessibility of children’s ECE arrangements can be meaningfully captured using a comprehensive and multidimensional approach (Paschall & Maxwell, 2022; Paschall et al., 2021). Furthermore, the findings of this study suggest several implications for ECE policy and provider efforts towards expanding equitable access to ECE.

Authors

• Christina Stephens, National Institute for Early Education Research

• Danielle A. Crosby, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Kierra Sattler, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Andrew J. Supple, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Catherine Scott-Little, University of North Carolina - Greensboro