2024 National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE)

In order to create a comprehensive portrait of the availability and use of early care and education, the NSECE is fielding a set of four integrated, nationally representative surveys beginning in 2023. These are surveys of 1) households with children under 13, 2) home-based providers 3) center-based providers, and 4) the center-based provider workforce. Together they characterize the supply of and demand for early care and education in America and permit better understanding of how well families' needs and preferences coordinate with providers' offerings and constraints.

The Household Survey is being conducted with a parent or guardian of a child or children under age 13 in households with at least one member child under age 13. Eligible respondents are identified through the Household Screener based only on the presence of an age-eligible child. Screening is being completed by mail, by phone, by web, and in person. All of these interviews are being conducted by an interviewer, primarily in person. This survey documents the nation's demand for early care and education services. Key questionnaire topics include details on usage of non-parental care, expenditures on non-parental care, parental search behavior for early care and education, and the balance of parental employment with child care needs and availability.

These data will help to answer such research questions as 1) Who is caring for America's children when they are not with their parents and do families with different demographic characteristics have different preferences or different patterns of usage? 2) How do families search for care and how does this vary by age of children, characteristics of parents, location, and availability of licensed slots per population? 3) How and how much do families pay for care? and 4) How many families of different characteristics receive public financial support for ECE, and how does this vary by age of child and type of care utilized?

The Home-based Provider Survey is being conducted with individuals who provide care in a home-based setting for children under age 13 who are not their own for five or more hours a week. Two sample sources contribute providers. One, home-based providers who appear in provider sampling frames constructed from state and national lists were sampled for this survey. These providers are designated as 'listed.' Listed providers are primarily licensed or regulated family day care providers, but also include other formally listed home-based providers such as license-exempt providers or providers participating in Early Head Start. Alternatively, households may be identified as eligible based on their responses to the household screener (specifically, that an adult in the household regularly cares for children not his or her own at least five hours per week in a home-based setting). These providers do not appear in the provider sampling frame and are designated as 'unlisted.' Data collection is being conducted by web, in person, and by telephone with field interviewers.

Key questionnaire topics in the home-based provider questionnaire include enrollment and the characteristics of the children served, rates charged for care, and participation in government programs, household composition, qualifications for and practices regarding early childhood education, use of curricula and activities conducted with children. Portions of the home-based provider questionnaire will contribute to analyses of the ECE workforce and mirror the content of the workforce (classroom staff) questionnaire administered to classroom-assigned instructional staff at center-based providers. Other portions of this questionnaire closely mimic the center-based provider questionnaire (see below), so that enrollment, program participation, provider charges for care, attitudes, orientation and activities data can be accurately compared across all different categories of provider.