One of the primary challenges is the limited data on parental preference for child care. The number of parents who choose to remain home with their children is unknown as is how many children receive private forms of child care (i.e., from relatives, neighbors, friends, nannies, au-pairs, or other forms of child care that are not subject to government regulation).

To address this limitation, the X Lab followed common practice using the maximum potential demand for child care within the county. We assume that any child living in a household in which all the parents participate in the workforce will need child care.

Another key challenge in the demand calculation is the lack of data on the location of demanded child care.

To address this limitation, the X Lab assumed that a family’s residential location is the place where they demand child care services. This distinction is important, as it is often the case that parents prefer child care services on the route to their workplace or close to their workplace to better respond to emergencies at the daycare, and this preferred location may be some distance from their residence. However, we do not know the proportion of parents who demand child care close to their workplace, and, therefore, cannot incorporate that information into the demand estimate.

On the supply side, the data on licensed and regulated providers is limited; there is no way of tracking private forms of child care outside of subsidies (e.g., neighbors, family, friends, au-pairs, etc.). The supply data utilized is, therefore, an undercount of the true level of child care being provided in the county. All supply gap calculations, therefore, are upper-bound estimates of the possible access gaps.

As noted earlier, the supply capacity does not indicate the number of seats utilized throughout the year, but provides the maximum potential supply of early child care if every location were enrolled at full capacity

Finally, there is no data on the quality of child care provided in the county.