Research has found demand for child care in the United States outpaces supply. However, the most widely available proxy for child care supply—authorized capacity—likely overestimates care availability in many studies. Authorized capacity represents the maximum children a provider can legally serve based on safety regulations and physical characteristics of the site. However, the slots available across sites can be constrained by factors not captured by authorized capacity, including the combination of ages currently enrolled and staffing at a site. If the gap between authorized capacity and “current capacity” is large, we stand to underestimate needed investments to improve access. This study quantifies the gap between providers’ current capacity as reported in a fall 2022 survey and authorized capacity per administrative records. Using data from 1,968 home- and center-based providers in Virginia, we find three key limitations of authorized capacity as a proxy of supply. First, providers’ current capacity was 74 % of their authorized capacity on average. Authorized capacity would overestimate child care availability by >30,000 slots across the providers in our sample. Second, center-based providers that accepted child care subsidies and those in neighborhoods with a greater concentration of poverty or people of color had significantly larger discrepancies between their current and authorized capacity. Finally, we find centers that reported challenges hiring and retaining staff had larger gaps between their current and authorized capacity compared to providers that did not report staffing challenges. These findings suggest the need for measures that more accurately and dynamically capture the number of children a provider can serve to better describe and address access inequities.

中文翻译：

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授权容量是衡量托儿服务提供者当前容量的良好指标吗？来自弗吉尼亚州的新证据


研究发现，美国对托儿服务的需求超过了供应。然而，在许多研究中，最广泛可用的托儿服务供应指标——授权容量——可能高估了托儿服务的可用性。授权容量表示提供者根据安全法规和站点的物理特征可以合法服务的最大儿童数。但是，跨站点的可用槽可能会受到授权容量未捕获的因素的限制，包括当前注册的年龄和站点的人员配置组合。如果授权容量与“当前容量”之间的差距很大，我们就会低估改善访问所需的投资。本研究量化了 2022 年秋季调查中报告的提供者当前能力与每个行政记录的授权能力之间的差距。使用来自弗吉尼亚州 1,968 家家庭和中心提供者的数据，我们发现授权容量作为供应代理的三个主要限制。首先，提供商的当前容量平均是其授权容量的 74%。在我们的样本中，授权容量将高估 >30,000 个托儿服务名额。其次，接受托儿补贴的中心提供者以及位于贫困人口或有色人种更集中社区的提供者，其当前能力与授权能力之间的差距要大得多。最后，我们发现，与未报告人员配备挑战的提供者相比，报告招聘和留住员工存在挑战的中心在其当前能力和授权能力之间的差距更大。 这些发现表明，需要采取措施更准确、更动态地捕捉提供者可以服务的儿童数量，以更好地描述和解决访问不平等问题。