HOW PARENTAL PREFERENCES AND SUBSIDY RECEIPT SHAPE IMMIGRANT FAMILIES’ CHILD CARE CHOICES

Urban Institute, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to shed new light on the facilitators and obstacles to immigrant and limited English proficient (LEP) families' access to child care subsidies and to high-quality, regulated child care. In doing so, this study will focus on how (1) parent preferences shape child care choices, (2) state child care subsidy policies influence eligible immigrant families' take-up of subsidies, and (3) subsidy uptake influences immigrant families' child care settings. Given that children of immigrants and LEPs form a large and growing share of all US children, state and local subsidy administrators and early care and education directors increasingly need to ensure their programs meet the needs of immigrant families in their communities, and work to overcome such families' barriers to seeking child care subsidies and high quality child care. This study will make use of the just-released National Study of Early Care and Education (NSECE), which contains a large, nationally-representative sample of families with children, to (1) document the parental preferences and child care choices of immigrant families with young children; (2) determine the factors that predict immigrant families' child care settings, including the relative roles of parental preferences for different care types, family characteristics, employment characteristics, the local community context, and local child care marketplace characteristics; (3) identify the state subsidy policies that promote subsidy participation among eligible immigrant families, and (4) estimate the extent to which subsidy receipt facilitates access to regulated care settings for immigrant families. Answers to these research questions are of vital for federal policymakers, state administrators, and local service providers as they seek to expand immigrant families' access to child care subsidies and regulated, high-quality care, while honoring parental choice. The project will result in a report of findings, a methodological brief, a user-friendly policy brief, and presentations at key policy research conferences.