The early care and education (ECE) landscape has changed dramatically since 2019.

The National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) captures families’ needs, preferences, and choices of non-parental care for children under age 13 and providers’ child care and early education offerings. Since the NSECE was last conducted in 2019, the landscape of ECE has changed dramatically. Funding for early childhood programming has grown as policymakers recognize the important role access to ECE plays for families as a work support for parents and an investment in children’s future educational and economic opportunities. At the same time, beginning in 2020, the nation experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to significant shifts in the U.S. economy. These circumstances likely altered parents’ use of ECE and the labor market and economic forces in which ECE providers operate.

NORC is leading the 2024 NSECE to better understand the ever-changing dynamics of ECE.

To gather new information, NORC is conducting a cross-sectional follow-up to the NSECE beginning in late 2023. The 2024 NSECE consists of four nationally representative inter-related surveys that will describe the nation’s ECE landscape in the year 2024:

• A Household Survey of households with resident children under the age of 13.
• A Home-Based Provider Survey of individuals who offer ECE services in residential settings to children under age 13. Home-based providers may care for children for pay or for free, and with or without a prior relationship with the families and children they serve.
• The Center-Based Provider Survey of center-based child care and early education providers serving children 5 and under, not yet in kindergarten. Center-based providers include private and public programs such as public school pre-kindergarten, private day care centers, Head Start programs, faith-based centers, and other preschools.
• The Workforce Survey of classroom-assigned staff members such as teachers, assistants, and aides in center-based providers serving children 5 and under who are not yet in kindergarten.
   

In early 2023, NORC will work on questionnaire design, analysis planning, and sample design. Data collection will begin in the late fall of 2023. We anticipate that preliminary data files will be released beginning in fall 2025 and initial findings from the study in fall 2026.

The 2024 NSECE will support the examination of how the ECE field has responded to policy initiatives.

The 2024 NSECE builds on findings from the 2012 and 2019 NSECE to allow for comparisons of supply and demand of child care and early education over the 12 years that span data collection. The 2024 NSECE aims to inform future policy discussions about child care and early education at the local, state, and national levels by providing data to:

• Build on the efforts and lessons from the 2012 and 2019 NSECE to allow for comparisons of child care and early education supply and the early care and education workforce from 2012 to 2024
• Capture the characteristics of households with children under age 13, such as parental employment status and schedules, preferences and choices of non-parental care, and other factors that affect their need for and access to child care and early education
• Document how the field of child care and early education responded to policy initiatives during the period between 2012 and 2024, including changes in supply and demand during the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020