2024 National Survey of Early Care & Education
Overview
Welcome to the 2024 National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE)!
The NSECE has collected information from families and child care providers before, first in 2012, then in 2019, and most recently, in 2024. The 2024 NSECE gathered critical insights on early care and education programs and policies, how families manage child care arrangements across the nation.
The 2024 NSECE consisted of four surveys:
- Households with young children in communities across the nation
- Providers of home-based care
- Centers, schools, and other programs caring for young children
- Classroom staff working in early care and education classrooms
We are now recontacting individuals who participated in the 2024 Household and 2024 Workforce (Classroom) surveys to expand on the information we collected.
In early 2025, we will follow up with the 2024 Household respondents to better understand how families currently find, select, and pay for care. In late 2025, we will follow up with the respondents of the 2024 Workforce (Classroom) survey to further examine the career trajectories of individuals who work in early care and education classrooms.
The NSECE is funded by the Administration for Children and Families, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.
2024 NSECE Project Director
Household Follow-Up
The National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) Household Follow-Up Survey will build on the insights gathered during the 2024 NSECE. This follow-up focuses on how families find, select, and pay for care. The survey results will provide critical information to policymakers, researchers, and public agencies to improve early care and education (ECE) systems nationwide.
By participating in this follow-up survey you will help answer questions, such as:
- How do parents balance work and school with child care?
- What types of early care and education do parents most need? Is this care available in their area? Is it affordable? What kind of help do parents need to pay for care?
- Which families use care provided by family, friends, and neighbors most often and why?
- Which families are not interested in using child care for their young children?
Information collected will help create a detailed understanding of families’ needs and the gaps in existing services. This research is vital for developing policies and initiatives that improve access to affordable, high-quality child care across diverse communities in the United States.
Impact
Even if you do not use child care services, your input matters.
It is important for us to hear from every household selected to get a complete picture of early care and education needs in your community. Your household was scientifically selected, and we rely on your voluntary participation to make the study a success.
FAQ for Households in the Follow-Up Survey
The National Survey of Early Care and Education is the only survey aimed at better understanding the people and programs throughout the country that take care of America’s children and the services that they provide. The survey was first conducted in 2012 and again in 2019. The 2024 NSECE recently concluded, and we are now following up with household respondents to gather additional information about their child care experiences and needs.
NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC) is conducting this study. NORC is an independent, nonpartisan research institution that helps federal agencies, decision-makers, and nonprofits make better decisions through data and analysis. For more information about us, please visit www.norc.org.
Your household was scientifically selected to participate in this survey from all households that participated in the 2024 NSECE. It is important for us to hear from every selected household to get a complete picture of the availability and use of early care and education in your area. You represent many other households like yours across the nation and cannot be replaced.
Your participation will help the nation’s policy makers and local agencies get a clearer picture of families’ needs for child care and how to better support working families that rely on these services.
Questions this study will help to answer:
- How do parents balance work and school with child care?
- What types of early care and education do parents most need? Is this care available in their area? Is it affordable?
- How do parents at different income levels pay for their children’s care? What kind of help do they need?
- How do families’ child care search, selection, and participation differ when they have one or more children with special needs?
- Which families use care provided by family, friends, and neighbors most often and why?
Answers that could identify you or your program in any way are separated from your other responses. Survey findings are put into summary reports that contain no names or other identifying information. Your name or any identifying information will never be released to the public. This study also has a Federal Certificate of Confidentiality from the government which protects researchers and other staff from being forced to release information that could be used to identify participants in court proceedings.
We use computing systems, staff training, and strict data access requirements to protect your identity and keep your responses private.
- Questionnaire responses and respondent identifying information are stored on a secure server with restricted access.
- Only authorized personnel associated with the study will have access to questionnaire responses and respondent identifying information. This access is granted on a need-to-know basis. When this information is no longer needed, then access is shut off.
- NORC computing systems use two-factor authentication. NORC staff must change their passwords on a regular basis to comply with security requirements.
- All NORC staff must pass annual trainings on data security and privacy.
- All NORC staff, including interviewers, must sign a pledge to protect your information. If this pledge is broken, an employee can lose his/her job and face legal action.
All information that you provide will be kept private to the fullest extent provided by the law. If you have questions about your rights as a study participant, you may call the NORC Institutional Review Board Administrator at 1-877-309-0542.
NSECE has a variety of resources available to verify the legitimacy of the study.
- View project information online at nsece.norc.org or on the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services website.
- The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has approved this survey (0970-0391). Without this number we could not conduct this survey.
- Interviewers visiting in-person will have a NORC badge with a hologram on the back.
- Anyone may visit NORC’s Study Participants webpage where the option “How to Identify NORC Interviewers” allows them to type in the NORC interviewer’s ID number to see a photograph of the interviewer.
2024 NSECE Households
The 2024 NSECE contacted households across communities in the nation to understand how they may or may not have used child care and whether anyone living there cared for children. The household survey was conducted with parents or guardians of children under 13. Since 2012, the NSECE has informed policies, including licensing regulations, health and safety guidelines, and funding for child care and public schools.
The 2024 NSECE Household Survey collected information to address questions such as:
- How parents balance work and school with child care?
- How parents choose providers, people, or organizations to care for their children? What decisions do parents make as they seek this care?
- What types of early care and education do parents most need? Is this care available in their area? Is it affordable?
- How parents at different income levels pay for their children’s care? What kind of help do they need?
- Which families use care provided by family, friends, and neighbors most often and why?
- How can we better support these types of caregivers and offer opportunities to help them improve the care they offer children?
Impact
Reponses collected by the 2024 NSECE will allow public and local agencies, researchers, and policymakers to better understand the challenges American families face trying to provide high-quality care for their children.
Home-Based Providers
The NSECE has helped show the vital role home-based child care providers play in their communities and how diverse home-based providers are. This much-needed information has helped inform funding decisions and other initiatives designed to improve early care and education across the country.
The 2024 NSECE collected information from home-based providers and other caregivers to create a national profile of early care and education (ECE) services.
The NSECE describes:
- Who is proving early care and education
- Their qualifications
- Their compensation
- The services they provide
- What motivates them to do this work
Since 2019, new legislation and initiatives have been introduced to better support home-based providers and help improve the quality of care they offer to families in their area. The 2024 NSECE collected new information to help understand what impact these efforts have had on individuals who look after children and the people who rely on them.
Impact
Survey responses to the 2024 NSECE will produce a rich data source that has the potential to benefit federal, state, and local or community-level child care policies and will be used to:
- Create a comprehensive catalog of the range of home-based care that is offered across the country, including how many children providers serve, the hours during which they provide care, how providers support families, and what motivates them to look after children
- Provide detailed information on the ways in which home-based providers operate, including what curricula they use, how they staff and organize groups of children, and what families pay for care
- Help develop initiatives to support caregivers through such things as educational assistance, training, and improved finances
- Better understand the experiences of the ECE workforce and offer opportunities for them to improve their knowledge and skills
Center-Based Providers
In 2012, the NSECE created the first national profile of center-based early care and education (ECE) providers in more than 20 years, describing who they are and what kinds of care they provide. In 2019, we collected new information to update this profile. Both of these efforts helped administrators, policy makers, and public agencies understand what types of center-based care were available to families, how many providers there were, and what types of programs they offered. The study also provided insight into the challenges providers face in their efforts to provide quality care to the families they serve.
Since 2019 new legislation, funding opportunities, and program standards have been introduced in an effort to better support center-based providers and make quality care more accessible to all families. The COVID-19 pandemic also affected the provision of ECE, as well as substantial federal investments in ECE since 2020. The 2024 NSECE was conducted to examine what impact these changes have had on ECE services in general and center-based providers in particular.
The 2024 National Survey of Early Care and Education addressed questions like:
- Who is caring for and teaching America’s children when they are not with their parents?
- What are the characteristics of care available to families?
- What sources of revenue do providers rely on, and how are those sources related to the care offered?
- How can we better support the ECE workforce?
- What are the opportunities to improve the care that children receive?
Impact
Your responses will be combined with others to produce a rich data source that has the potential to benefit federal, state, and local or community-level child care policies. The data collected from this survey will be used to:
- Create a comprehensive description of the range of institutional and individual providers in the U.S., including community-based care, for-profit providers, Head Start programs, school-based settings, nonprofit providers, faith-based institutions and home-based child care providers
- Provide detailed information on the ways in which ECE providers operate—like what curriculum they use, how they staff and organize classrooms, and what they charge
- Help develop policies that support providers and their ability to serve families.
- Help develop initiatives so that providers can recruit and maintain staff.
Workforce
In 2012, the NSECE provided the first national profile of individuals working directly with children in center-based early care and education classrooms, describing who they are, their qualifications, their compensation, and what motivates them to do this work. In 2019, we collected new information to update this profile. Both of these efforts highlighted the critical role teachers, aides, and assistants play in early care and education (ECE) services and the professional challenges they face. They have helped agencies understand the kind of support classroom staff need in order to increase the quality of care offered and inform initiatives to better support the ECE workforce, from professional development programs to improved pay and benefits.
Since 2019, new legislation, funding opportunities, and program standards have been introduced in an effort to better support center-based providers and workers and make quality care more accessible to all families. The COVID-19 pandemic also affected the provision of ECE, as well as substantial federal investments in ECE since 2020. The 2024 NSECE and the 2024 NSECE Workforce Follow-up seeks to understand the impact these changes have had on ECE services in general and on those working with children in the classroom in particular.
A follow-up study in 2025 will gather additional information from workforce respondents to gain a deeper understanding of early care and education needs across the nation.
The 2024 National Survey of Early Care and Education will address questions like:
- Who is caring for and teaching America’s children when they are not with their parents?
- How do teachers plan activities for the children in their care?
- What opportunities are available for classroom staff to build knowledge and skills?
- How can we better support the early care and education workforce?
- What are the opportunities to improve the care that children receive?
Impact
Your survey responses will be combined with others to produce a rich data source that has the potential to benefit federal, state, and local or community-level child care policies. The data collected from this survey will be used to:
- Create a comprehensive description of the range of individuals working directly with children in the classroom, describing who they are, their qualifications, their compensation, and what motivates them to look after children
- Help develop initiatives to support classroom staff through such things as educational assistance, training, and improved pay and benefits
- Better understand the experiences of the early care and education workforce and offer opportunities for career growth and improved work conditions
