Child Care Workforce

Home
/
Research Topics
/
Child Care Workforce

Workforce quality and compensation are major issues in child care. Low wages are common, particularly among teachers and caregivers serving infants and toddlers. State policies vary in terms of subsidy rates, wage supplements, and other policies that impact compensation; in education and training requirements for child care professionals; and in the availability of scholarship programs to incentivize educational advancement.

Featured Resources

Child Care in Crisis: Texas Care Study

In this research brief series, Child Care in Crisis: Texas Case Study, read about national child care issues through original findings from Texas, home to more than 10% of the nation’s children. The briefs explain the specific issues facing the child care industry and what states can do to support early childhood educators and child care businesses, as well as ensure that all families have access to high-quality child care.

Early Investment, a Lifetime of Returns: Articulating the Value of Early Childhood Investments in Virginia

Our estimates indicate that Virginia’s investment yields substantial returns to children, families, and the state–including reduced poverty and child maltreatment, a lifetime of improved educational achievement, and hundreds of millions of dollars in state economic returns.

Transforming the Child Care Landscape: A Case Study of New Mexico

The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center undertook an exploratory research process to both document New Mexico’s historic state actions and to develop a theory of change that connects these actions to their most likely outcomes based on existing evidence in the field.

Related Resources

New Vanderbilt Study Finds Nashville Child Care System Faces Interconnected Challenges in Supply, Workforce, and Affordability

As families across the country navigate the pressures of finding and affording child care, new research from Vanderbilt University’s Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center examines what that landscape looks like in greater Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, Tennessee

Brief 5: Estimating the True Cost of High-Quality Home-Based Care – Insights from True-Cost Modeling

Home-based child care plays a small but vital role in greater Davidson County, Tennessee, offering families flexibility, affordability, and culturally aligned care, particularly for infants and toddlers. This brief uses a cost estimation model to examine the true cost of providing high-quality home-based child care in the region, where providers often serve simultaneously as educator, owner, and director.

Brief 4: What High-Quality Center-Based Child Care Really Costs, and Why No One is Paying It – Insights from True-Cost Modeling

The market price of child care reflects what families can afford to pay, not what it actually costs programs to provide high-quality care with a well-compensated workforce. This brief uses a cost estimation model to examine the true cost of providing center-based child care for children under age 5 across greater Davidson County, Tennessee.

Brief 2: The People Behind Early Care and Education – Understanding the Early Childhood Workforce

The early childhood education workforce is central to the quality and functioning of center-based child care programs, yet directors across the country face persistent challenges recruiting and retaining educators. This brief draws on survey data from 116 child care programs to describe the size and composition of the early childhood education workforce across greater Davidson County, Tennessee.

Executive Summary: Davidson County, Tennessee Child Care Landscape Study

The Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study examines local child care supply, population metrics that inform demand, the local ECE workforce, operating conditions of local child care programs, and the estimated cost of providing high-quality child care in greater Nashville, Tennessee.

Willing Providers, Waiting Families: Subsidized Child Care in North Texas

In North Texas, child care providers already serving subsidized families are willing to serve more; yet, thousands of families remain waitlisted. Download the brief Child care is one of the highest expenses families with young