By Nicole Morell, Director of Communications
Cambridge—A newly published working paper by Professor Jeffrey Liebman, Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard Kennedy School, reports a significant gap between the child care that Massachusetts families want and what the current system provides.
The findings published in “How Much Child Care and Early Education Do Massachusetts Parents Want?” come from a comprehensive survey of 1,001 mothers in the Commonwealth and show that just over half (53%) of Massachusetts children under age four are enrolled in formal early education such as childcare centers, licensed family providers, or school-based programs, while nearly 90 percent (89%) of parents would use formal care if affordable, quality care were available. Liebman argues that the state’s child care market faces gaps in capacity, quality, and affordability.
“This survey shows that the overwhelming majority of Massachusetts mothers want the same thing – a substantial amount of affordable formal child care. Parents don’t have widely different preferences; they have widely different access.” Professor Jeffrey Liebman
The survey builds on Liebman’s October 2024 report, “An Economic Analysis of the Child Care and Early Education Market in Massachusetts,” which highlights the economic benefits of investing in early education and care in the state. Government spends on average $23,000 per child each year to educate Massachusetts children in grades K-12, but only $4,000 per child under five — which is why we have the capacity gap, quality gap, and affordability gap.
“Over the past five years Massachusetts has increased its investments in early education and care by more than $500 million per year, boosting enrollment and stabilizing providers, but we are still far from meeting parents’ needs,” says Liebman. “State leaders want to fix the child care problem, but many aren’t sure of the goal: how much care do parents actually want? This survey answers that.”
Other key findings from the survey include:
- 40 percent of mothers report that they pay more for child care than for their rent or mortgage.
- 61 percent of mothers either strongly or somewhat agree with the statement “Given how much of my salary goes to child care, it is barely worth working.”
- Families want a significant amount of formal child care. The median family currently using formal care would use 35 hours of care per week for their child if they could afford it. The median family not currently using formal child care would use 25 hours of care per week if they could afford it.
- 85 percent of mothers with infants want formal child care for their child, compared with 89 percent of parents with toddlers, and 91 percent of parents with preschoolers.
- Of mothers who were working prior to their youngest child being born, 81 percent returned to work, and their median time off from work was 17 weeks. When asked “if money was not an issue, how long would you ideally have liked to have stayed home with this child before returning to work?” the median response was 52 weeks. 85 percent gave an answer of at least six months.
“Setting policy targets for early education and child care can be difficult, given what sometimes appears to be a wide range of parental preferences and care arrangements,” says Liebman. “This survey shows that the overwhelming majority of Massachusetts mothers want the same thing – a substantial amount of affordable formal child care. Parents don’t have widely different preferences; they have widely different access.”
Read the full Working Paper and associated Policy Brief.
Liebman is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.
