Geographic Access to Child Care in Wisconsin
2020 Edition
PDG + APL Partnership
The Preschool Development Grant is a federal grant administered by Wisconsin's Department of Children and Families (DCF) in collaboration with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and additional partners. Wisconsin's Vision for children birth to age 5 is that by 2023, all Wisconsin families will have equitable access to high-quality, affordable and local early care and education.
As part of PDG's efforts, the Applied Population Lab has created this story map looking at access to child care. This mapping is part of the PDG comprehensive Needs Assessment to further understand the impact physical access to care might have on families with young children. This analysis only shows the geographic dimension of access to child care and does not indicate whether a family can afford to pay for child care. For more information about affordability and Wisconsin’s efforts under the PDG, visit the PDG website .
Why is child care access important?
Early care and education supports the cognitive and social-emotional development of young children. It plays a crucial role in Wisconsin's economy and enables parents of young children to participate in the State's labor force.
To better understand where there were gaps in care, we analyzed the locations of approximately 4,500 child care providers in Wisconsin in relation to the distribution of families with children under age 5. In particular, we looked at whether the families' potential need for care exceeded the capacity of nearby providers. Essentially, this map helps answer the question of "Are there enough spots for the number of children in this area?"
How we measured access
Simple measures of child care access look at potential demand for child care within a given geographic unit—like a city, county, or Census tract—and the number of spots providers can offer within those same geographic units.
Unfortunately, these simple types of measures don't take into account families that may look outside their own geographic unit to find care.
In order to overcome this limitation, we mapped the locations of families and providers in a way that helps us better understand how much child care is in close proximity to families and how many families nearby may be seeking that same care.
The analysis looked at 20-minute drive time areas to more accurately assess the variations in provider supply and family demand for child care. This approach also places more weight on providers that are closer to families.
The results of this analysis indicate a tremendous degree of variation across the state with greater care capacity in some areas and a scarcity of child care, or a "child care desert," in others.
Want to learn more about the analysis methods? You can find additional information in the "Equity analysis" section of this report.
How to read the map
Each dot shown on the map represents a Wisconsin family with children under age 5. These points are not actual family locations, but estimated families and locations based on the 2010 Census and more recent data from the 2018 5-year American Community Survey.
Rural areas of the state tend to have fewer families that are more spread out geographically, whereas urban areas tend to have more families living closer together.
As a result, some rural communities only have a few dots scattered across an area and some urban communities have dots that are next to each other.
The dots are colored according to the number of children potentially in need of care among nearby spots. Families in areas with less access (high number of children per spot) are shown in orange while families in areas with better access (low numbers of children per spot) are shown in blue.
To bring up the legend while viewing a map, use the circle button in the bottom left.
Areas with more than three children per spot are referred to as child care deserts.
What we found
State level view shows that families and providers are most concentrated in urban areas of the state. Although there is much greater demand for child care in urban areas, the capacity of providers in those areas is also high.
This means that the relationship between demand and supply tends to be more equal in urban areas. Children per spot ratios are comparatively lower in urban areas than in most rural areas.
The average children per spot ratio for rural families was 3.4, compared to 1.7 in urban areas.
Some urban areas like north Milwaukee show a very high concentration of families but also high concentrations of provider capacity. Most of the family dots in that area have children per spot ratios of less than 1.
For families in the city of Milwaukee altogether, there were 1.1 children per spot on average.
However, having a child care spot nearby doesn't mean that a family can afford to pay for it. This analysis only shows the geographic dimension of access.
Not all urban areas are the same in Wisconsin. Other urban areas have a high concentration of families but relatively low provider capacity.
For instance, most Beloit families live in a child care desert, where ratios are greater than three children per provider spot.
For families in the city of Beloit, there were 4.3 children per spot on average.
In general, rural families tended to have lower geographic access to child care, particularly among families located outside rural town and village centers. Rusk County, for instance, has a small population that is spread out over a large area, so it is not surprising that most families there do not have child care nearby.
For families in Rusk County, there were 5.6 children per spot on average.
But even in more populous rural counties, like Vernon County, families have relatively low access to child care.
For families in Vernon County, there were 7.3 children per spot on average.
There are also some places within rural counties that have relatively good access. See, for instance, the communities along the western portion of Polk County.
For families in Polk County, there were 1.9 children per spot on average.
Want to know how how geographic access to child care looks in a specific part of Wisconsin? Explore the map!
Equity analysis
Demographic analysis
Using data on the number of children from the 2010 Census and the 2018 5-Year American Community Survey along with the capacity or spots at regulated child care providers, we are able to estimate how these differences between the demand for spots (number of children) and the supply of spots (regulated child care capacity) vary across the state of Wisconsin.
In general, the disproportionate location of Wisconsin's regulated child care providers in urban areas means that it appears that poor people and people of color living in urban area have greater access to regulated child care spots compared to the rest of the state. However, transportation methods, affordability and other factors are not part of this geographic analysis.
The differences between groups are generally persistent but smaller when we compare families within a given county or municipality. For instance, when comparing White versus Latino access to child care in Milwaukee, differences exist regarding access, but those differences would be smaller than when comparing White versus Latino for the whole state. Comparisons we make across groups are affected by the limitations of our methods.
Limitations
There are significant limitations to our methods that must be considered along with the results:
- This analysis does not consider whether families can afford the price of nearby care. Families may have providers nearby according to the map but are still unable to afford the price of care.
- Because the study uses drive time to measure proximity, families who rely on public transportation may have more limited access than the children per spot scores suggest.
- The analysis does not attempt to examine provider-level variation in quality of care, hours of care, or cultural acceptability which may be important to families.
- This analysis includes capacity data on regulated child care providers regulated by the Department of Children and Families, including school-based providers and camps. This does not account for families' access to other regulated / unregulated early care options, like Early Head Start, Public 4-K programs, etc.
- Finally, places where many people work may have greater demand for child care than the model suggests due to commuters' use of child care providers close to parents' places of employment.
Spatial analysis methods
Spatial analysis for this project was conducted at the UW–Madison Applied Population Lab (APL). The methods closely followed those developed by a team of University of Minnesota researchers in the article below:
To produce more accurate results for Wisconsin, the APL adapted the Minnesota model in the following ways:
- We used 2.85 instead of 4.0 as the beta coefficient we used in our distance decay function. This allowed for more influence between family provider pairs up to 20 minutes apart.
- We used all estimated families in our model rather than a 25% sample of families. This allowed us to get more complete coverage of census blocks with very small family counts.
For questions or additional information about the data and analysis, please contact the APL .
What's next?
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the child care landscape of Wisconsin and resulted in reductions in the number of available providers and the capacity of some providers that remain open. Please visit the PDG website for current information.
