Less than half of children ages 5 and younger in California had regular child care arrangements in 2023, with affordability, lack of available space or concerns about quality being the main reasons, according to a new study from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR).
The study, which is based on data from the UCLA CHPR’s California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), found that young Latino children, who make up 46.6% of children ages 0–5 in the state and young children from low-income households are less likely than the state average to have regular child care.
“Regular child care” is defined as equivalent to 10 or more hours per week, excluding child care provided by parents, legal guardians or stepparents.
“High-quality child care remains out of reach for too many families in California,” said Nicole Lordi, project director at the Public Health Institute and lead author of the study. “A lack of regular child care acts as a drag on socioeconomic mobility and overall well-being for families.”
California had 2.6 million children ages 0–5 in 2023. While the overall state average for young children having regular child care was 46%, CHIS data showed that differences in incomes corresponded to differences in a family’s access to regular child care.
Based on the 2023 federal poverty level (FPL) of $30,000 for a family of four, families with lower incomes were less likely to have access to regular child care. The report showed:
More than half (53.7%) of children living in households earning 300% or more of the FPL ($90,000 for a family of four) had regular child care.
Less than a quarter (23.1%) of children living in households earning between 100–199% of the FPL had regular child care.
Slightly more than a quarter (26.7%) of children living in households earning between 0–99% of the FPL had regular child care.
“As a state, we need data to inform smart and efficient solutions to urgent problems like access to child care,” said Ninez A. Ponce, director of the UCLA CHPR and principal investigator of CHIS. “It’s gratifying to work with partners like First 5 California that leverage publicly accessible CHIS data to help create a California where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.”
Among young children with regular child care arrangements, nearly a quarter (24.4%) received services informally from someone like grandparents, other family or non-family members. About 1 in 4 received child care from a formal or public source, such as a state program or Head Start, preschool, nursery school or child care center. The report showed that half of young children received child care from more than one source.
In 2023, 17% of parents of children ages 0–5 years said they were unable to find child care when they needed it for a week or longer. Cost was the most frequent reason given (49.7% of those who said they couldn’t find child care), though not the only reason, according to the report.
More than a quarter (26.1%) of those parents said the child care providers lacked quality or space. Eight percent of parents said there were problems with available hours or locations, and 16.2% listed “other reasons.”
Examining the data by race and ethnicity also showed differences. In 2023, white children ages 0–5 years were more likely to have regular child care than the overall population of young children (56.7% vs. 46%). The figures were 34.3% of young Latino children, 55.9% of young Black or African American children, and 53.5% of young Asian children.
“What’s particularly concerning is that access to reliable, regular child care is getting more difficult,” Lordi said.
