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Child Care Supply and Demand Challenges in Wisconsin Final Report

The following report presents findings from the Child Care Supply and Demand Challenges study developed in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF). Wisconsin child care providers (N=3,546) completed a questionnaire embedded in the February 2024 Child Care Counts (CCC) Stabilization application with the goal of learning more about demand for child care, providers’ potential ability to serve more children at existing sites, and responses to staffing challenges. Respondents composed a large, diverse, and representative sample of the full population of child care providers throughout Wisconsin.

The report includes information about the questionnaire sample (including comparison to the full child care provider population) and descriptive results for each question. The authors also conducted analyses of findings by provider type, region (including by individual region and Southeastern compared to Balance of State), urbanicity, YoungStar rating, and Wisconsin Shares receipt, both individually and in combination with other provider characteristics such as number of full-time children enrolled and whether infant care was available. Given consistent, significant differences in findings between group and family child care providers, the authors provide separate results for each of these provider types and note salient differences by other provider characteristics within the text. The authors also present prominent themes and illustrative quotes from responses to the open-ended question asking what, if anything, could help providers serve more children at their sites.

Results suggest a substantive gap between child care supply and demand in Wisconsin. Although providers reported having over 33,000 potential “unfilled spots” statewide, they also reported a mismatch between available capacity to serve more children and family needs in terms of location, age of children, services provided, and affordability. Unmet demand for infant care appears particularly striking. Of the 48,000 waitlist spots reported, 39% were for pregnant people or infants; however, the vast majority of unfilled spots available were for older children. Group centers also reported staffing challenges as a key barrier to being able to serve more families; over one third (35%) of all providers reported that keeping staff or filling staff vacancies has been “extremely” or “very” challenging since Child Care Counts stabilization funding was reduced in May 2023. For programs experiencing staffing challenges, impacts reported by more than half of these providers included asking current staff to work more hours or take on more duties, hiring less qualified staff, serving fewer children, and turning families away. In addition, 52% of providers experiencing staffing challenges reported having to raise tuition as a result.

Categories

Child Development & Well-Being, Children, Early Childhood Care & Education, Education & Training, Employment, Labor Market, Low-Wage Work

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