Investigating child care decision-making to understand access among families with low incomes

In the present study, we examine the extent to which demographic factors, including household subsidy receipt, predict child care access among families with low incomes. To operationalize access, we investigate parental decision-making factors that align with multiple dimensions of the family access framework (i.e., reasonable effort, affordability, support of child development, and meeting parent's needs; Thomson et al., 2020) during the search for a new child care arrangement. Data come from the 2019 National Survey of Early Care and Education and includes 779 low-income families (m annual income = $27,023.51, SD = $15,271.35) with children under the age of 5 who engaged in a child care search during the past two years. Results from logistic regression models revealed various patterns of access according to household race and ethnicity, the age of the child for whom the search was performed, degree of community urbanicity, and whether households received a child care subsidy in the past 12 months. Notably, families in households who received a subsidy had more than two times greater likelihood of finding child care during their search relative to families in households who did not receive a subsidy. Findings have implications for policies designed to expand access to underrepresented populations and in underserved areas.