Examining duration of family enrollment in subsidized child care after policy change: Disaggregated outcomes for diverse populations in New Mexico

Child care subsidies are most beneficial when families receive them for a sustained period, facilitating affordable access to care. As a plurality-Hispanic border state with substantial tribal populations, New Mexico contributes unique insights into how the nationwide move to 12-month recertification periods for child care subsidies affected family enrollment duration for these populations. We hypothesized that for our sample, average care duration would increase modestly for families after full implementation of 12-month recertification, but that these increases would be uneven across subgroups by race/ethnicity, income, and whether they are working or in school. Using 42 months of administrative data (January 2015-June 2018), we used survival time regression modeling to examine whether families enrolled after the 12-month policy implementation had longer durations in subsidized care, controlling for confounding family-level and contextual factors. Results show that families who entered subsidized care after New Mexico’s 12-month recertification policy went into effect were on average more likely to reach longer enrollment spells. Median subsidized spell length increased by 83 %, from 6 months prior to policy implementation up to 11 months afterwards. Sub-group analyses revealed that enrollment duration increased across groups, but Native Americans gained significantly less from the policy. Enrollment spells for student parents improved but remained markedly shorter than those of employed parents. Although the policy extended families’ usage of the subsidy system in the aggregate, further research is needed to better contextualize and understand the complex factors that may differentially affect families’ ability to remain enrolled in the program.