Childcare
Evidence-based strategies about childcare
(e.g., provision, facilities, funding, options, access to, benefits or subsidies).
How to Navigate this Page
Select policy targets and evidence-based strategies that are priorities and achievable within your setting and sector. Align with your mandate, capacity, jurisdictional boundaries, and scope of practice.
Strategies marked with ☔ are important for populations-at-risk.
Entry Point for Action:
Reflects the organization’s or government unit’s sector scope and mandate
Policy Target:
Relates to the initiative’s focus
Evidence-based Strategies:
Concrete actions to guide initiatives’ design, delivery, and evaluation
SAMPLE INDICATORS
- Trends in public expenditure in childcare
- Childcare burden, stratified by sex and gender (e.g., food preparation and feeding, and care, training, and instruction of children)
- Number/percentage of parents/guardians who started an education or job training program (i.e., pursuit of higher education opportunities)
- Trends of household income over time
- Female participation in the workforce (especially for families with young children)
- Gender wage gap
SAMPLE INDICATORS
- Number/percentage of families who report being able to access and afford safe, high-quality, reliable childcare spaces, stratified by socioeconomic status
SAMPLE INDICATORS
- Perceived financial strain among families with children younger than the age of 6
- Employment rates among parents and guardians (e.g., stratified by sex and gender)
- Estimated impact of program participation on annual household earnings
SAMPLE INDICATORS
- Proportion of childcare providers supplying affordable, high-quality nonstandard hour care
- Number/percentage of parents/guardians working nonstandard or unpredictable schedules reporting finding affordable, high-quality childcare services that meet their needs
- Average number of (un)paid working hours per week, stratified by sex and gender
SAMPLE INDICATORS
- Availability of licensed, high-quality early childhood care per area (e.g., in low-income areas)
- Child-staff ratio
- Trends in early childhood outcomes such as problem-solving, language development, and autonomy (e.g., stratified by socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity)
- Parents’ perceptions of their children’s early life experiences, such as diet, parental affection, and nurturing environment (e.g., stratified by immigrant status)
- Number/percentage of children experiencing a cumulative advantage pattern in their first years of life
- Children’s likelihood to enjoy better employment conditions and income later in life increases (e.g., family income)
- Upward economic mobility among children from low-income backgrounds
- Intergenerational mobility across the distribution of income, i.e., probability for the child of being in the same quintile as their parent
- Intergenerational transmission of occupational status
- Intergenerational socioeconomic disadvantages (e.g., stratified by socioeconomic status)
SAMPLE INDICATORS
- Average annual cost of childcare
- Number/percentage of parents/guardians spending more than 10% of their gross household income on childcare fees
- Number/percentage of parents/guardians reporting they can choose between having their children attending or not attending childcare programs because of affordability of fees (e.g., per household income level)
- Parents/guardians’ perceptions about their ability to choose if they want to participate in the workforce, stratified by sex and gender
- Access to a high and consistent standard of childcare (e.g., stratified by socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity)