Child Care in the United States: Markets, Policy, and Evidence

Chris M. Herbst ()
Additional contact information
Chris M. Herbst: Arizona State University

No 15547, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Participation in non-parental child care arrangements is now the norm for preschool-age children in the U.S. However, child care services are becoming increasingly expensive for many families, and quality is highly uneven across providers and sectors, raising questions about the impact of child care costs and quality on parental employment and child development. The U.S. policy landscape is dominated by three policies that subsidize costs for low-income families or attempt to improve the safety and quality of providers: Child Care and Development Fund, regulations, and quality rating and improvement systems. In this paper, I provide a thorough review of the evidence on each policy, focusing on how they influence a wide range of family and provider outcomes. The paper begins with a detailed description of the structure and functioning of the child care market, using the most up-to-date data on families' utilization of care services and provider characteristics. I then draw on a diverse set of studies across multiple fields to summarize the evidence on the impact of child care policy. In the final section of the paper, I offer recommendations for future research in each policy area.

Keywords: maternal employment; regulations; subsidies; child care; child development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I24 I38 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 70 pages
Date: 2022-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published in: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2023, 42 (1), 255-304

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp15547.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15547

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().