Child care policy is often built around a familiar question: What do child care businesses need to survive?
That question matters—but it is not enough. If policymakers want child care systems that truly work for families and strengthen the workforce, decisions must begin with parents: what they need and value, and how they actually make choices in a system that offers far fewer real options than we often assume.
The work we have done, first at the Bipartisan Policy Center and now at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, shows that about 4.2 million children under 6 with all parents in the labor force lack access to a formal child care slot within a “reasonable” driving distance.
The result is a national child care gap of roughly 28%. Urban areas account for more children affected in raw numbers (about 3 million), a 27.1% gap, but rural communities face a deeper access problem—about 1.19 million children, with a 31.5% gap.
National parent surveys consistently show that availability, affordability, and logistics—not preference—drive child care decisions. While at the Bipartisan Policy Center, we conducted 10 national surveys of parents. Among the most relevant findings for policymakers:
- After trust, cost is the dominant factor in child care decisions, outweighing quality, curriculum, or credentials. Many parents report that they chose a setting primarily because it was the only affordable option, not because it best met their needs.
- Hours of operation are a major barrier, particularly for parents working nonstandard or unpredictable schedules. Parents frequently report that available child care does not cover early mornings, evenings, weekends, or rotating shifts.
- Parents rely heavily on informal care, often by necessity rather than preference, especially when formal care is unavailable, unaffordable, or inflexible.
- Parents frequently patch together multiple arrangements—a sign not of choice, but of lack of options in the system.
- Parents want more options, including smaller settings, closer-to-home care, and arrangements that feel trustworthy and consistent—even if those settings fall outside traditional center-based models.
These findings challenge a core assumption underlying many policy decisions: that parents are selecting among plentiful, functional options. In reality, many parents are choosing among limited, imperfect, or mismatched alternatives.
Rural and urban parents face different barriers—but the same constraint: too few real options. In rural communities, parents report:
- Severe shortages of licensed providers, particularly for infants and toddlers,
- Long travel times to reach available care—sometimes crossing county lines,
- Heavy reliance on family, relatives, or small home-based providers because centers are scarce or nonexistent, and
- Limited access to other arrangements when a provider closes or becomes unavailable.
For rural parents, “choice” often means deciding whether care exists at all, not selecting among multiple options.
Urban parents often appear to have “options on paper,” but many report that those options are financially or logistically out of reach. Urban parents often face:
- Costs that exceed rent or mortgage payments
- Long waitlists, especially for infants
- Mismatches between program hours and work schedules
- Limited flexibility for parents working in retail, health care, hospitality, or service sectors
In both rural and urban settings, parents are making rational decisions within a constrained system—yet, policymakers often misinterpret these decisions as preference rather than necessity.
When policymakers see parents choosing informal care, reducing work hours, or leaving the workforce, it is tempting to conclude that families prefer these outcomes. The survey data tell a different story.
Parents are actually responding to prices they cannot afford, hours that do not align with work, and limited availability where they live. One of the most important lessons from the BPC surveys is this: parents value child care, but many cannot use what the system offers.
In short, parents are behaving rationally in an irrational market. If the goal is to expand and improve parent choice, policy must be grounded in how parents experience the system—not how the system is currently designed.
As communities begin to address the child care gap, economic planners and policy experts should begin by engaging parents in policy development. Parent-informed policy means:
- Designing funding and subsidy structures that reflect real work schedules, not idealized ones
- Supporting a mix of providers, including home-based and relative care
- Measuring success by whether parents can use care—not just whether slots exist
- Recognizing that stabilizing providers is necessary but not sufficient if care remains inaccessible to families
We all want parents to have more choice. But choice is only meaningful when options align with parents’ lives. Until child care policy starts with what parents say they need—and what the data show they actually face—policies will continue to fall short, particularly for rural families, low- and middle-income workers, and parents with nontraditional schedules.
If policymakers want child care systems that support families, strengthen the workforce, and promote economic growth, the path forward is clear: Listen to parents. Learn from their decisions. And design child care policy around the choices they would make if the system actually worked for them.
National parent surveys make one message unmistakably clear: parents are navigating a child care system that does not match their work lives, schedules, or budgets. As a result, parents are not exercising choice—they are making difficult decisions in a market that fails them.
Linda Smith is the senior director of policy at the Buffett Institute, with a specific focus on military, rural, and Tribal child care, early childhood financing, and engaging the business community in child care initiatives nationwide.