Estimating the Supply of and Demand for Child Care in Philadelphia

Estimating the Supply of and Demand for Child Care in Philadelphia I. Introduction With the goal of providing better data with which to inform funders, practitioners and advocates for child care in Philadelphia, The Reinvestment Fund’s Policy Solutions (TRF) group has undertaken an analysis designed to estimate the supply of and demand for child care in the city of Philadelphia. We present the results of this work in two ways: (1) A report offering an overview of the project and a set of observations and findings that the Foundation and other stakeholders can use in their deliberations around a variety of childcare policy matters in Philadelphia (e.g., funding, improving access to high quality child care). (2) An online database and mapping tool, based on TRF’s PolicyMap, that will allow users to view, map, and generate custom reports on the supply of, demand for, and shortage in the supply of child care (www.childcaremap.org). Using a variety of data sources, each with some inadequacy or inconsistency, we were able to create an estimate of the supply of and demand for child care in Philadelphia. With the supply and demand estimated, we then estimated the relative and absolute shortage in total, certified, and high quality1 supply. The project’s Advisory Group vetted all of the data, statistical and spatial methods and deemed the results an accurate portrait of child care in Philadelphia.2 This project was funded by the William Penn Foundation (Foundation). II. Purposes of the analysis The specific purposes of the analyses undertaken are: o To estimate the supply of and demand for child care in Philadelphia with particular attention paid to the quality of care and access to public transportation. Our supply and demand estimates also allow for a preference for child care near where one lives or where one works. o To describe the geography of inequality—should it exist—with attention paid to income/poverty, race/ethnicity, and a variety of standard area designations (e.g., zip code, councilmanic district, neighborhood). o To build a foundation of information upon which to base objective and rigorous planning around child care. o To develop an online tool, based on TRF’s PolicyMap, for use by various stakeholders, including policymakers and consumers of child care, to make strategic investment decisions and selections among the available options for children. 1 For the purposes of this report, certified supply indicates that a child care provider is included in the database of providers maintained by Pennsylvania’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL). High quality child care is defined as providers who have attained a three or four STAR rating in the Keystone STARS program. Keystone STARS (Standards, Training/Professional Development, Assistance, Resources and Support) is a program of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania established in 2002 to set standards for childcare centers and to provide resources and requisite technical assistance to improve the overall quality of child care, pre-school and school-age care programs in Pennsylvania. [http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/keystone_stars/20985] 2 The Advisory Group contained representation from: the Foundation, United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, Public Citizens for Children and Youth, Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children, Public Health Management Corporation, Child Care Information Services of Philadelphia, City of Philadelphia (various offices and agencies), United States Census Bureau, School District of Philadelphia, Brightside Academy, Nonprofit Finance Fund and TRF. Report: Child Care in Philadelphia Page 2 TRF completed research designed to respond to these objectives through a variety of means (described in Appendix I). III. Observations on the Distribution of Supply, Demand and Shortages To highlight the full picture of child care in Philadelphia, it is useful to show where the supply is located throughout the city (including the demographic and economic characteristics of areas) and then look at the demand along the same dimensions. It is then possible to show the geography of the shortage in supply versus demand and to understand the populations for which the gap is most concerning. What is immediately evident is that the highest levels of supply and demand often occur in the same places; this is what you might expect in a reasonably well functioning marketplace. But, places with the largest shortages in supply and demand may also have some of the highest levels of supply that are still inadequate to meet the high level of demand. What follows is a detailed description of the places in Philadelphia with the most supply, demand, and the largest shortages. A. Supply Across the city of Philadelphia, TRF estimates the total supply of child care (certified and uncertified) was 100,806 seats. Of those, 70,200