The early childhood care and education workforce in the United States:
Understanding changes from 1990 through 2010
Daphna Bassok, University of Virginia, dbassok@virginia.edu
Maria Fitzpatrick, Cornell University, mdf98@cornell.edu
Susanna Loeb, Stanford University, sloeb@stanford.edu
Agustina S. Paglayan, Stanford University, paglayan@stanford.edu
DRAFT – DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHORS
We are grateful to Bruce Fuller and Deborah Stipek for useful comments on previous drafts
of this paper. This research was supported by a grant from the Institute of Education
Sciences (R305A100574). The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the University of Virginia, Cornell University, Stanford
University, or IES. Any remaining errors are our own responsibility.
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ABSTRACT
Despite heightened policy interest in improving the quality of the early childhood care and
education (ECCE) workforce, very little is known about the characteristics of this
workforce or the extent to which these characteristics have changed over time. Using
nationally-representative data, this paper fills this gap by documenting changes between
1990-2010 in the educational attainment, compensation and turnover of the ECCE
workforce overall and within each of the three sectors that compose it: centers, homes and
schools. We find that the average educational attainment and compensation of ECCE
workers, as well as the prestige of those entering the workforce, increased substantially
over the period studied, and that turnover decreased. We also document a major shift in
the composition of the ECCE workforce towards center-based settings and away from
home-based settings. Although this shift towards more regulated settings provides one
plausible explanation for the overall improvements, we actually find that the
improvements in the characteristics of the ECCE workforce were primarily driven by
changes within each of the sectors rather than by the shift away from home-based settings
towards centers. Further, we show that the home-based workforce exhibited the most
profound changes over the period examined.
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INTRODUCTION
In the United States, most children ages five and under regularly receive care by someone
other than their parents, including relatives, babysitters and workers employed by day care
centers or preschool programs (U.S. Census Bureau 2010, Bassok 2010). High-quality early
childhood experiences are linked to substantial short- and long-term benefits both for the
individual and for society (Knudsen, Heckman, Cameron and Shonkoff 2006; National
Scientific Council on the Developing Child 2007). As in the K-12 sphere, where it is routinely
acknowledged that teachers are the most important school-level determinant of children’s
learning, a growing body of evidence suggests that the quality of early childhood experiences
also depends largely on the quality of the caregiver or teacher (e.g., see Shonkoff and Phillips
2000, Peisner-Feinberg et al. 2001, National Scientific Council on the Developing Child 2004,
and Hamre and Pianta 2006).
The increased recognition of the importance of early childhood care and education
(ECCE) in general, and of ECCE providers in particular, has led to heightened policy interest,
at both the federal and state levels, in strengthening the quality of the ECCE workforce. For
instance, in 2011 the federal government funded the Race to the Top Early Learning
Challenge, a competitive grant program to support states in their efforts to improve early
childhood education programs, and identified “supporting a great early childhood education
workforce” as one of five key areas of reform. Similarly, the latest reauthorization of the
federal Head Start program requires that fifty percent of Head Start teachers hold a Bachelor’s
degree (BA) in child development or a related field by 2013 (Barnett et al. 2010). Further,
twenty-five states are operating or developing Quality Rating and Improvement Systems
(QRIS) to assess and improve the quality of ECCE providers, and many of these QRIS
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programs offer financial incentives to providers that invest in their employees’ education and
training (Tout et al. 2010) .
To inform policy, and to guide further research, it is important to establish whether the
increased efforts to improve the quality of the ECCE workforce have been accompanied by
any changes in the characteristics of this workforce. Historically described as a low-education,
low-compensation, high-turnover workforce (Howes, Phillips and Whitebook 1992; Cost,
Quality and Outcomes Study Team 1995; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2000;
Vandell and Wolfe 2000), more recent studies suggest that the qualifications, compensation
and stability of ECCE workers continue to be worryingly low. For instance, Herzenberg, Price
and Bradley (2005) report that in the years 2002 through 2004, teachers and administrators
working in early childhood education made about 10 dollars per hour, roughly half as much as
the average female college graduate. Another study surveying child care centers in Iowa,
Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri in 2001, found that 40 percent of caregivers intended to leave
the ECCE industry within less than five years (Torquati, Raikes and Huddleston-Casas 2007), a
figure consistent with estimations of actual turnover from California child care centers
between 1996 and 2000 (Whitebook et al. 2001). Indeed, efforts to measure changes in the
ECCE workforce over time suggest that the qualifications of center-based workers have either
changed little or declined (Whitebook et al. 2001; Saluja, Early and Clifford 2002; Herzenberg,
Price and Bradley 2005; Bellm and Whitebook 2006).
However, earlier attempts to describe the evolution of the ECCE workforce provide an
incomplete picture – and even constructing an accurate description of the ECCE workforce at
a single point in time has proved complex. First, many of the relevant studies concentrate on a
single state or even a single local community, making generalizability problematic. Second,
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most studies use only cross-sectional data which do not allow researchers to track changes in
the characteristics of the workforce over time. Finally, the bulk of studies focus only on a
single segment of the ECCE industry (i.e. only state preschool programs or only child care
centers). In contrast to elementary and secondary education, where public schools are the
main supplier and adhere to uniform state-level regulations, the provision of ECCE services is
quite fragmented, spread between public, for-profit and non-profit private providers. Several
studies have emphasized the difficulty of understanding the evolution of the ECCE workforce
over time, given the lack of longitudinal data needed to track individual workers, or even the
lack of comparable cross-sectional data about the workforce for multiple points in time
(Saluja, Early and Clifford 2002; Brandon and Martinez-Beck 2006; Kagan, Kauerz and
Tarrant, 2008). Information about ECCE workers in home-based settings is particularly
limited.
The current study is unique in that it addresses all three of the limitations of previous
studies discussed above. We make use of national, longitudinal data that encompass workers
in all three ECCE sectors: centers, homes and schools. We address two main research
questions. First, we ask how the characteristics of the ECCE workforce in the U.S. changed
over the period 1990-2010. As discussed below, our interest is in the evolution of
characteristics that plausibly proxy for quality. Second, we describe changes separately
within each of the three ECCE sectors and ask to what extent are the overall changes in the
characteristics of the ECCE workforce explained by a redistribution of the workforce across
center-, home- and school-based childcare, and to what extent they are explained by changes
in the characteristics of the workforces within each of these sectors.
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Over the past twenty years there has been a substantial increase in the utilization of
“formal” ECCE settings and in turn a decline in the share of workers employed in home-based
settings (Bassok, Fitzpatrick and Loeb, in preparation). This decline in the relative importance
of the home-based sector –often singled out as the lowest-quality sector– may drive overall
changes in the ECCE labor force over time. On the other hand, changes in the characteristics
of the aggregate ECCE workforce could also be driven by changes in the characteristics of the
workers employed within each sector. By decomposing the overall change trends, we shed
light on the mechanism by which the industry has changed over time, and explore the extent
to which improvements over time in the ECCE workforce have been driven by the policy focus
on expanding and improving the formal sector.
We find that the educational attainment and compensation of the national ECCE
workforce increased over the period of analysis, and that turnover from the ECCE industry
decreased substantially. Our results differ substantially from earlier studies that highlight
negative or stagnant trends in the ECCE workforce (Whitebook et al. 2001; Saluja, Early and
Clifford 2002; Herzenberg, Price and Bradley 2005; Bellm and Whitebook 2006; Whitebook
and Ryan 2011). These differences are likely explained by our focus on a more recent period
of analysis (1990-2010) and by our use of national data including workers from all three child
care sectors. Our results show that changes in the characteristics of the national workforce
are mostly explained by changes in the characteristics of workers within each sector and less
so by a redistribution of workers from home-based to center- and school-based settings.
Surprisingly, we find that while the characteristics center-based workers exhibited increases
in compensation and decreases in industry turnover, changes along all dimensions analyzed
were most pronounced among home-based workers.
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ECCE Worker Characteristics
Throughout the paper we focus on the evolution of four workforce characteristics: (1) the
educational attainment of workers; (2) their compensation; (3) the probability of leaving the
ECCE industry; and (4) the socioeconomic and occupational prestige of those who move from
another industry into the ECCE workforce. In this section we explain the rationale for
exploring each of these measures. Although none of these characteristics are direct measures
of caregiver quality, we argue that given the dearth of direct measures of quality, particularly
longitudinally or at the national level, each of our four measures serves as a strong potential
proxy for caregiver effectiveness. Indeed, in recent years many states have implemented
policies aimed at improving ECCE quality by mandating higher levels of education for
workers, increasing wages and promoting a reduction in turnover. Improvements along these
dimensions are likely to reflect an increased ability to attract and retain qualified workers
into the ECCE industry, and are hypothesized to lead to higher quality experiences for young
children.
There is ongoing debate about the causal link between formal education and ECCE
worker quality. In their review of this literature, Tout, Zaslow and Barry (2006) report that
most studies find a positive association between worker education levels and the overall
quality of care. Blau (2000), for example, shows that ECCE workers who have a high school
degree or some college education implement better classroom practices than otherwise
comparable workers who have not completed high school. On the other hand, evidence about
the importance of specific degrees (e.g. BA) for better classroom practices and child outcomes
is more mixed, with several studies reporting no significant relationships (Blau 1999, 2000;
NICHD 2000; Currie and Neidell 2003; Barnett 2003; Kelley and Camilli 2007; Early et al.
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2007). However, many of these studies fail to control for factors that are likely to be
correlated with both workers’ education and the quality of care, and therefore we cannot
make conclusive statements about whether and how specific education degrees affect the
quality of care.
Even in the absence of conclusive evidence of a causal link between specific education
degrees and quality, there are pragmatic and policy reasons to examine whether there have
been changes in the education levels of ECCE workers, as this is often used to measure the
quality of ECCE services: most states require public pre-kindergarten teachers to hold a BA;
the federal government requires that fifty percent of Head Start teachers hold a BA in child
development or a related field by 2013 (Barnett et al. 2010); and many of the Quality Rating
and Improvement Systems used by states to evaluate the quality of ECCE providers award a
higher rating to those providers whose teachers and directors hold a BA (Administration for
Children and Families 2010). Moreover, an increase in the educational attainment of workers
(including an increase in the proportion of workers with BAs) may reflect an improved ability
of employers to be selective when recruiting individuals into the ECCE workforce. A more
educated workforce may also reflect that the ECCE industry has become a more attractive job
alternative.
Workers’ wages provide a second potential proxy for quality. Research suggests a
positive association between workers’ wages and the quality of classroom practices, perhaps
because higher compensation helps to attract and retain qualified workers as well as motivate
those already in the ECCE profession (Mocan et al.1995; Blau 2000). In addition, there is some
evidence that higher wages are associated with a lower probability of turnover from the child
care profession, especially among more educated workers (Whitebook and Sakai 2003).
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In contrast to education and wages, which are considered “structural” features of
quality because they can be directly regulated or altered, industry turnover, our third
measure, may provide a more direct proxy for the quality of child-caregiver interactions. At
the elementary school level teacher turnover is related to lower reading and math gains
(Ronfeldt, Lankford, Loeb, Wyckoff, 2011). While the research on the impacts of turnover in
early childhood settings is limited, Tran & Winsler (2011) found that low-income children in
center-based care who experience a change in primary caregiver over the course of a year
scored lower on most measures of school readiness compared to children with a stable
caregiver. Further, the number of months that a child spends with a caregiver is positively
related to the quality of the child-caregiver relationship (Elicker, Fortner-Wood and Noppe
1999). Aside from its direct effect on children’s experiences, high turnover may lead both
employers and employees to invest little in building skills that are specific to the childcare
profession.
Our final outcome is the socioeconomic and occupational prestige of those who move
from another industry to the ECCE workforce. Prestige is a measure of the desirability of an
occupation such that changes in this measure over time may signal a change in the industry’s
capacity to attract and retain qualified workers.
EMPIRICAL APPROACH
Data
We use data from the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a
monthly household survey administered by the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics
that focuses on the labor force status and demographic characteristics of the working-age
population. The CPS sample consists of approximately 50,000 households and is nationally
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representative. Households from all fifty states and the District of Columbia are in the survey
for four consecutive months, out for eight, and then return for another four months before
leaving the sample permanently. The fieldwork is conducted during the calendar week that
includes the 19th of the month. The period of reference for most questions is the week before
the survey, but the March Supplement also includes some questions that refer to the previous
calendar year (U.S. Census Bureau 2006).
For all employed individuals surveyed, the CPS collects information about the industry
and occupation in which they work, using the same categories as the Census 1990 and 2002
Industry and Occupational Codes.1 We use these codes to identify ECCE workers and to
distinguish between center-, home-, and school-based workers. The center-based ECCE
workforce includes all workers who are not self-employed, and who either work in the “child
day care services” industry, or have child care occupations (e.g., “child care workers”, “prekindergarten or kindergarten teachers”, “early childhood teacher’s assistants”) and work in
an industry other than “elementary and secondary schools”, “private households”, “individual
and family services”, or “family child care homes”.2 The home-based ECCE workforce includes
all self-employed individuals who work in the “child day care services” industry; all those
employed in the “family child care homes” industry; those who have child care occupations
(e.g., “child care workers”, “private household child care workers”, “pre-kindergarten or
kindergarten teachers”, “early childhood teacher’s assistants”) and are employed in the
“private households” or “individual and family services” industries; and those who have child
The 1990 Census Codes are used to categorize the industry and occupation of workers before January 2003.
Beginning in January of 2003, the 2002 Census Codes are used (U.S. Census Bureau 2006).
2 On average over the period 1990-2010, 82.8 percent of individuals identified as center-based ECCE workers
were employed in the “child day care services” industry, and the remaining 17.2 percent were employed in other
industries.
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care occupations and are self-employed in other industries except for “elementary and
secondary schools”.3 Our ability to track home-based ECCE workers over time represents an
advantage over previous studies, including those that have also relied on the CPS to identify
child care workers (Herzenberg, Price and Bradley 2005).4 Finally, the school-based ECCE
workforce includes “pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teachers” and “early childhood
teacher assistants” employed in the “elementary and secondary schools” industry.5 For each
individual in the survey, we are able to identify both whether they were an ECCE worker in
the week of reference and if their longest job in the previous calendar year was an ECCE job.
The workforce characteristics that we analyze are measured as follows:
Educational attainment: Since 1992, the CPS has collected information about each household
member’s highest level of education completed as of the week of reference. In keeping with
prior studies, we describe changes in the share of ECCE workers with less than a high school
degree, exactly a high school degree, at least some college education but no BA, and at least a
BA. Information on educational attainment is available from 1992 to 2010.
Compensation: The CPS collects information about an individual’s annual earnings from the
longest job held in the previous calendar year. We describe changes in the mean annual
earnings of those whose main job in the previous calendar year was an ECCE job. We also
estimate the hourly earnings of these workers, restricting our estimation to those who were
It should be noted that, since home-based workers are identified based on individuals’ responses concerning
their employment status, type of employer, industry and occupation, it is likely that some individuals who take
care of a relative’s child (e.g., grandparents, aunts) identify themselves as child care workers, especially if they
receive some form of compensation for doing so.
4 As Herzenberg et al. (2005) point out, some of the codes relevant to identifying home-based workers before
2003 were no longer available from 2003 on. However, while they conclude that this makes it difficult to track
home-based workers over time, we do not observe any sharp discontinuities in either the number of homebased workers or in the share of home-based workers in the national ECCE workforce before and after 2003.
These findings are available from the authors upon request.
5 Note that some workers might be employed in the “child day care services” industry but perform duties that
are not directly related to the care of children. This might include, for example, cooks, bus drivers, janitors,
gardeners, or secretaries. We do not include those workers in our analysis of the ECCE workforce.
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full-year workers in the previous calendar year.6 We express both earnings variables in 2010
dollars. In addition, we describe the evolution of a variable that gives us a sense of non-salary
forms of compensation: the share of ECCE workers whose employer helped pay for a pension
and/or health plan. Individuals report whether any employer helped pay for pension/health
plans in the previous calendar year. Therefore, as with the earnings variables, these variables
are measured among those whose main job in the previous calendar year was an ECCE job.
Moreover, to capture whether an individual received benefits from an ECCE employer, we
restrict our analysis of non-salary benefits to those who report that they had only one
employer in the previous calendar year.7 Information on earnings and benefits is available
from 1990 to 2009.
Year-to-year industry turnover: To measure child care industry turnover rates, we exploit
the fact that the CPS provides information about an individual’s industry and occupation both
in the week of reference and for the longest job held in the previous calendar year. Among
individuals whose main job in the previous calendar year was an ECCE job, we estimate the
industry turnover rate as the share of those who were no longer in the ECCE workforce
during the week of reference. An analogous method is used by Harris and Adams (2007) to
measure turnover from elementary and secondary teaching. Information on industry
turnover is available from 1990 to 2010. Note that our measure only captures whether
The CPS collects information about hourly wages for a subsample of the March interviewees that excludes all
self-employed individuals, thus excluding a large proportion of home-based workers. We estimated the hourly
wages of ECCE workers using the information collected by the CPS about annual earnings from the main job held
in the previous calendar year; number of hours worked in a typical working week in the previous calendar year;
and full/part-year employment status in that year. We estimate the hourly earnings from their main job among
full-year workers whose main job was an ECCE job, assuming that these individuals worked fifty weeks during
the previous calendar year, and that the fifty weeks were devoted to their ECCE job. Among all workers whose
main job in the previous calendar year was an ECCE job, the proportion who worked on a full-year basis –and to
whom our estimates apply– increased from 46 percent in 1990 to 65 percent in 2010.
7 Among all workers whose main job in the previous calendar year was an ECCE job, the proportion who had
only one employer increased from 75 percent in 1990 to 84 percent in 2010.
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individuals remained in the ECCE workforce or not, but among those that did, it does not
distinguish between individuals who changed jobs. Thus, year-to-year industry turnover is a
lower bound estimate of the level of instability experienced by children.
Occupational prestige of entrants into the ECCE workforce: We combine the information on
a worker’s occupation provided by the CPS, with the methodology developed by Charles Nam
and colleagues (Nam 2000; Nam and Boyd 2004), to create a new variable that assigns each
individual an occupational status score. These scores are based on the median earnings and
median educational attainment of workers within a particular occupational category. They
take values from 0 to 100, and can be interpreted as the percentage of individuals in the
civilian labor force who are in occupations with combined levels of education and earnings
below that occupation.8 We use these scores to examine the average occupational status in the
calendar year before the survey of individuals whose main job in that year was outside the
ECCE industry, but who were ECCE workers in the week of reference. Information on this
variable is available from 1990 to 2010.
Methods
As described above our two research questions are: (1) How have the characteristics of the
ECCE workforce changed over the past two decades? (2) To what extent are changes in the
characteristics of the ECCE workforce explained by a redistribution of the workforce across
center-, home- and school-based child care, and to what extent are they explained by changes
in the characteristics of the workforces within each of these sectors?
We assign the Nam-Powers-Terrie occupational status scores to observations before 2003. These scores were
created based on the earnings and education distributions of the civilian labor force corresponding to the 1990
Census (Nam 2000). From 2003 on, observations are assigned the Nam-Powers-Boyd scores, which were created
based on the distributions corresponding to the 2000 Census (Nam and Boyd 2004).
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To address our first research question, we analyze changes in our variables of interest over
the period 1990-2010, except for the case of educational attainment, which can only be
analyzed from 1992 onwards. We assess whether the changes we observe are unique to the
ECCE workforce by comparing them to changes among two other groups: all female workers
and a selected group of low-wage workers. Female workers are a relevant comparison group
as females comprise the vast majority of ECCE workers. 9 We also compare ECCE workers to
other low-wage workers, specifically those in any of the following industries: beauty salons,
food services, entertainment and recreation services, grocery stores, department stores, and
non-teaching jobs in elementary and secondary schools (e.g., bus drivers, cooks, janitors,
teacher aides, secretaries and administrative assistants). We choose this specific set of
industries because they are the main low-wage industries from which ECCE workers come
when they enter the child care industry, as well as the main industries to which they migrate
when they leave the ECCE workforce.10 Throughout all our analysis we use three-year moving
averages in order to increase the precision of our estimates.11
To address our second research question, we perform two sets of simulations.12 First,
we estimate what the overall change in the ECCE workforce’s characteristics would have been
had the distribution of the workforce across the three sectors changed as it did over the
period of analysis, but assuming that the characteristics of workers within each sector
remained the same as in 1990 (or 1992 in the case of education). Second, we estimate what
Based on our calculations, over 95 percent of ECCE workers over the period of analysis were women.
Together, over the full period of the study, they represent about a third of migration from another industry
into child care, and from child care to another industry.
11 For example, the share of ECCE workers with less than a high school degree in year 2007 is, in fact, the share of
workers with less than a high school degree in the pooled cross-section of observations from 2006, 2007 and
2008; the share of workers with less than a high school degree in year 2008 relies on pooled data from 2007,
2008 and 2009, and so on.
12 The equations used for these simulations are provided in the Technical Appendix.
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the overall change in the workforce’s characteristics would have been had the characteristics
of the workers within each of the sectors changed as they did, but assuming that the
distribution of the workforce across the sectors remained the same as in 1990 (or again, 1992
in the case of education).
RESULTS
Changes in the characteristics of the ECCE workforce in 1990-2010
We begin by examining changes in the ECCE workforce as a whole, and find that all of the
characteristics analyzed –education, compensation, turnover and prestige of entrants–
changed in the direction hypothesized to improve ECCE quality. Table 1 and Figure 1 show
that the share of ECCE workers with at least some college education rose from 47 to 62
percent between 1992 and 2010. The mean annual earnings among ECCE workers also
increased by 51 percent, from $10,746 to $16,215.13 While part of this increase was driven by
an increase in the number of hours worked by ECCE workers14, the mean hourly earnings of
ECCE workers also increased substantially over that period (by 33 percent, from $8.8 to $11.7
per hour).15 Similarly, the share of ECCE workers whose employers provided pension and
health benefits also increased (from 19 percent in 1990 to 28 percent in 2009).
Annual turnover from the ECCE industry decreased dramatically over the period of
analysis (from 32.9 percent in 1990 to 23.6 percent in 2010). Finally, individuals who in 2010
moved into child care from other occupations came from more prestigious occupations than
Recall that all earnings figures are expressed at 2010 dollars. The earnings reported correspond to those
received in the calendar year before the survey. Since we employ CPS survey data up to March of 2010, the last
period of reference for the earnings variables corresponds to calendar year 2009.
14 The mean number of hours worked per week among ECCE workers increased from 29.9 to 31.8 between 1990
and 2010.
15 Hourly earnings are our own estimation and apply to individuals whose main job in the calendar year before
the survey was an ECCE job, and who were full-year workers during that year. For details on how this variable
was estimated, see the Empirical Approach section.
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those who moved into child care in 1990: the average occupational prestige score of ECCE
entrants increase by 4.7 percentiles over this period, from 37.6 to 42.3.16 Taken together,
these results suggest substantial change in the characteristics of ECCE workers, and in all
cases these changes are in the direction posited to improve quality.
To put the ECCE patterns into context, we next compare the characteristics of this
workforce to those of both female workers generally and a sample of low-wage workers. In
1990, ECCE workers had substantially lower annual earnings and hourly earnings than either
of these groups. They were also far less likely to receive pension or health benefits and much
more likely to leave their industry. In most cases, the changes observed among ECCE between
1990 and 2010 were more marked than those observed among the comparison groups. For
instance, the ECCE workforce showed a larger increase in mean annual earnings than the
female workforce (by 51 vs. 25 percent, respectively) and in hourly earnings (by 33 vs. 17
percent); a larger increase in the share of workers with employer-provided pension or health
benefits (by 9 vs. 1.5 p.p.); and a steeper decline in industry turnover (by 9.3 vs. 6.8 p.p.).
While the share of workers with at least a BA increased somewhat less than for female
workers overall, the percentage with at least a high school degree increased more. All selected
variables exhibited a larger improvement among ECCE workers compared to low-wage
workers. Not only did the improvements observed among ECCE workers go above and
This change is marginally statistically significant. Throughout the paper, we use the term “significant” to refer
to changes that were statistically significantly different from zero at the 5 percent level. In the case of changes in
the average occupational prestige score of those entering the ECCE workforce, the change was statistically
significantly different from zero at the 15 percent level. Note that in the case of educational attainment, annual
earnings and industry turnover, the analysis applies to the full sample of ECCE workers; and in the case of hourly
earnings and pension/health benefits, it applies to a substantial fraction of this sample. In contrast, the analysis
of average occupational prestige scores applies only to individuals who entered the ECCE workforce in a given
year. This is a small sample, and estimates are therefore noisy, which is why for this variable we evaluate
significance not only at 5 but also at the 10 and 15 percent level.
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beyond general trends, but the changes observed reflect a stable trend within the ECCE
industry and are not the product of the economic crisis that began in 2008.17
Decomposition of the changes in the quality of the ECCE workforce: Changes in the
relative importance of the sectors, or changes within the sectors?
In 2010, about 56 percent of ECCE workers were employed in center-based settings; 26
percent, in home-based settings; and 18 percent, in schools. As shown in Figure 1, between
1990 and 2010, there was a significant redistribution of ECCE workers: the relative
importance of home-based workers declined (by 21.8 percentage points), and this was
compensated mostly by an increase in the relative importance of center-based workers (by
17.5 p.p.), and by a small increase in the relative importance of school-based workers (by 4.3
p.p.). It is worthwhile to note that although the relative importance of school-based workers
increased only slightly, the number of workers in this sector increased by 45 percent between
1990 and 2010, a trend consistent with both the expansion in the provision of state prekindergarten programs and the shift from part- to full-day kindergartens. The number of
center-based workers also increased dramatically over the period of analysis (by 61 percent),
while the number of home-based workers decreased (by 39 percent). The redistribution of
ECCE workers from child care homes to centers and schools is consistent with the recent
One plausible hypothesis for the reason underlying the observed improvements in ECCE workers’
qualifications and stability is that these changes may be the product of the economic crisis and do not reflect
stable trends. For instance, the crisis may have enabled ECCE employers to be more selective in terms of who
they hired or retained; may have led unemployed workers to take jobs for which they were over-qualified; and
may have encouraged workers to stay in the ECCE industry for more time than they had planned. However, in a
supplementary analysis not shown, we explored whether the observed trends reflect a relatively stable pattern
over the entire period or whether there were changes in trends following the economic crisis that began in 2008.
To do this we look separately at changes over 1990-2007 and 2007-2010. If anything, our results suggest that
the improvement of ECCE workers’ characteristics was stalled or reversed, not accentuated, during the crisis
period. However, differences between 2007 and 2010 are not statistically significant. Results are available from
the authors upon request.
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decline in the share of children under age five whose main child care arrangement is in a
home setting (U.S. Census Bureau 2005).
As shown inFigure 2, and in line with prior research, in all time periods home-based
workers had far lower levels of education and compensation and higher levels of turnover
from the ECCE industry than center- or school-based workers. Thus, the decline in the relative
importance of home-based workers may have contributed to the observed increase in the
educational attainment, compensation and stability of the national ECCE workforce discussed
earlier. However, the changes observed in the aggregate workforce may also be explained by
changes within the sectors, including changes within the home-based workforce.
Indeed, the period 1990-2010 saw a change in the characteristics of ECCE workers
within each of the sectors. As described in Table 2, home-based workers, and to a lesser
extent center-based workers, experienced changes that suggest an overall improvement in
quality, while school-based workers did not change significantly. Among center-based ECCE
workers, there was a significant increase in average annual earnings (by 35 percent between
1990 and 2009) and in average hourly earnings (by 18 percent). Moreover, there was a
significant decrease in the share of center-based workers who left the ECCE industry from one
year to the next (by 9.6 p.p., from 34 percent in 1990 to 24.4 percent in 2010). Indeed, the
decrease in industry turnover among center-based workers was more pronounced than that
observed among female or low-wage workers. The remainder of outcomes considered also
showed changes in a direction consistent with improvement, but the changes were not
statistically significantly different from zero.
Among home-based ECCE workers, all the characteristics of interest improved
significantly and substantially over the period of analysis. With respect to educational
18
attainment, there was a significant increase in the share of workers with at least some college
(by 21.4 p.p.), and a significant decrease in the share of workers with less than a high school
degree (by 17.8 p.p.). The average annual and hourly earnings of home-based workers
increased by 92 and 50 percent, respectively, between 1990 and 2009, and there was a
significant increase in the share of home-based workers with pension or health benefits (by
4.5 p.p.). Finally, turnover from the child care industry declined substantially among homebased workers (by 8.4 p.p., from 36.9 percent in 1990 to 28.5 in 2010). Notably, the
magnitude of the improvements within the home-based workforce exceeded that of the
female and low-wage workforces for all characteristics.
In summary, over the period of analysis there was a substantial decline in the share of
home-based ECCE workers, driven largely by an increase in the share of center-based
workers as well as a slight increase in the share of school-based workers. While considerable
differences remain between sectors with respect to all the characteristics analyzed, the
pronounced changes within the home-based sector imply a narrowing of the gap with respect
to the other two sectors. The results suggest that overall improvements observed for the
ECCE workforce as a whole may be driven both by the decline in the prevalence of homebased workers and by changes in the characteristics of workers within each of the sectors.
In a final analysis we decompose the change in the characteristics of the aggregate
ECCE workforce into the component explained by the expansion of the formal sector and the
component explained by changes in the characteristics of workers within the sectors. Our
estimations are presented in Table 3. While both factors contribute to the overall change, for
most variables (educational attainment, annual and hourly wages, and industry turnover),
most of the aggregate improvement is explained by changes within the sectors, with changes
19
in the relative importance of the sectors explaining only a small portion of the overall
improvement. For example, 78 percent of the increase in average annual earnings between
1990 and 2009 is explained by increases in the earnings of workers within the sectors, and
only the remaining 22 percent is explained by the redistribution of workers. Similarly, 86
percent of the substantial fall in the child care industry turnover rate is explained by a fall in
the turnover rate of each sector’s workforce, while only 14 percent was explained by the
redistribution of workers across sectors.
Given the importance of within-sector changes in explaining the overall changes in the
characteristics of the aggregate ECCE workforce, we estimated each sector’s contribution to
the part of the overall change attributable to within-sector changes. Our findings are reported
in Table 4. Most of the changes in educational attainment and earnings that is attributable to
within-sector changes are explained by changes within the home-based ECCE workforce.
Indeed, over two thirds of the increases in the ECCE workforce’s educational attainment and
over fifty percent of the changes in compensation that are attributable to within-sector
changes are driven by improvements within the home-based sector.
DISCUSSION
Our study contributes to the existing literature about the ECCE workforce in several key ways.
Using data from the CPS, we are able to describe changes in the national ECCE workforce as a
whole, in each of the three sectors that compose it, and for a more recent period than previous
studies. A key goal of the paper was to understand whether and how the ECCE workforce has
changed over time, particularly with respect to a set of characteristics that may proxy for the
quality of the ECCE experiences available to children: workers’ educational attainment,
compensation, turnover from the child care industry, and the occupational prestige of those
20
entering the workforce. Our findings suggest that over the period 1990-2010, the ECCE
workforce as a whole exhibited signs of improvement along all of these characteristics.
Moreover, for all of the characteristics considered, the improvements observed within the
ECCE workforce were more pronounced than those observed among other low-wage workers,
and for most characteristics they were also more pronounced than those observed among
female workers.
In contrast, prior studies reported a decline or little change in the educational
attainment and compensation of the ECCE workforce. However, these earlier studies have
generally focused on the center-based workforce, and have not addressed the evolution of the
school- and home-based workforces (Whitebook et al. 2001; Saluja, Early and Clifford 2002;
Herzenberg, Price and Bradley 2005; Bellm and Whitebook 2006). The most recent of these
studies relies on the same data used in the current study to describe the evolution of the
center-based workforce up to 2003 (Herzenberg, Price and Bradley 2005). It reports a decline
in the share of the center-based workforce with a BA. This is consistent with our findings.
However, beginning in 2004 and up to 2010, we observe a reversal of this trend. Overall we
do not observe significant changes in the educational attainment of the center-based
workforce over the period 1990-2010, but we do see significant improvements in the
compensation and stability of this workforce.
In addition to providing new information about the changing characteristics of the
ECCE workforce, we also document a dramatic reconfiguration of the ECCE workforce, such
that the majority of workers now work in formal rather than home-based settings. Given that
center- and school-based workers tend to have substantially higher education levels, salaries,
and stability, it would seem plausible that the shift towards more formalized types of care
21
explains the overall positive trends in the industry. Surprisingly, however, we show that the
shift away from home-based care and towards center settings is not the primary explanation
for the changes observed in the industry at large. In fact, most of the improvement in the
ECCE workforce is attributable to improvements in the characteristics of workers within the
sectors, with the redistribution of workers from informal to formal settings explaining only a
small portion of the overall changes. Further, while the center-based workforce exhibited
significant increases in earnings and a remarkable decline in industry turnover, changes
within the home-based workforce were the primary driver of the changes in educational
attainment and earnings observed for the ECCE workforce as a whole.
These findings –that the overall improvement of the ECCE workforce was primarily
driven by improvements within the home-based workforce– are puzzling in light of the
heightened policy interest in the expansion and improvement of more formalized ECCE
settings such as preschools and pre-kindergarten programs. Improvements observed within
the home-based workforce may be related to recent efforts to increase the qualifications and
stability of these workers. These efforts include programs introduced to support and reward
participation in professional development and the acquisition of further education;
supplement the wages of ECCE workers to ensure they meet a locally-determined minimum
living wage; facilitate the provision of employer-sponsored health plans by pooling together
workers from different child care centers and homes; provide technical assistance to homebased providers; and hold child care providers accountable for the quality of services they
provide (Kagan, Kauerz and Tarrant 2008). Further research is needed to understand the
extent to which these efforts have contributed to the observed improvement in the education,
compensation and stability of home-based workers.
22
The current study provides new evidence about the changing nature of ECCE and
particularly about the changing characteristics of home-based ECCE workers. While the CPS
allows us to describe this labor force in greater detail than previous studies, the CPS was not
designed to study the ECCE industry, and several of its limitations with respect to the current
study are worth highlighting. First, while the CPS provides information about structural
features of ECCE quality such as the education and compensation of workers, it cannot be
used to assess whether and how the processes within ECCE settings have changed. Turnover
from the ECCE industry may proxy for the quality of ECCE processes, as the stability of
workers is likely to impact the quality of the relationships they build with the children under
their care as well as how much they invest in building skills that are specific to child care jobs.
However, turnover is still a proxy. A more direct measure of quality would involve observing
and assessing the quality of child-caregiver interactions or linking ECCE workers with data on
the learning gains of the children they serve. Indeed, much remains to be known in terms of
whether and how processes within ECCE settings have changed.
A second limitation of this study is the sample size. Each March Supplement of the CPS
between 1990 and 2010 contains, on average, 673, 532 and 227 center-, home-, and schoolbased ECCE workers, respectively. By pooling together observations from three consecutive
years and calculating three-year moving averages, we were able to describe the evolution of
the center- and home-based workforces with reasonable precision. However, in the case of
the school-based workforce, the direction of the changes was consistent with an
improvement, but the changes were not statistically significant. We don’t know whether this
is because, in fact, there was little change within this workforce, or because the sample was
too small and the estimations too volatile. Further research relying on other data sources
23
could compare the trajectory of the school-based sector in states that have made considerable
investments in expanding its provision, vis-à-vis states that have not. The third limitation lies
in that our study cannot distinguish between ECCE workers who work with infants and
toddlers, and those who work with preschoolers.
These limitations notwithstanding, our findings shed an optimistic light on the
possibility of improving ECCE opportunities. First, they show that the qualifications,
compensation and stability of the ECCE workforce can improve, and in fact have improved
over the past two decades. The decline in turnover from the ECCE industry has been
particularly marked, and is observed both among home- and center-based workers. While
some degree of turnover may be desirable in order to replace less effective workers with
better ones, the ECCE industry turnover rate in 1990 reached 32.9 percent, considerably
above the turnover rate of 11 percent observed among elementary and secondary education
teachers. By 2010, however, the gap between the two had narrowed, as turnover from the
ECCE industry had declined to 23.6 percent, while turnover from elementary and secondary
teaching had remained fairly constant at 10 percent.18 This decline in turnover from the ECCE
industry was not just a reflection of secular trends in the economy, as it was sharper than the
decline observed among female or low-wage workers. To our knowledge, ours is the first
study to look at the evolution of turnover for a nationally representative sample of the ECCE
workforce.
Estimates of the turnover rate from the elementary and secondary education teaching workforce are
computed in the same way as for ECCE workers: we identify, among those who were elementary and secondary
education teachers in the calendar year before the survey, the proportion who were no longer so in the week of
reference. Teachers are those who were employed in the “elementary and secondary schools” industry and who
held occupations as “elementary school teachers” or “secondary school teachers”.
18
24
Second, improvements have taken place within both the center- and home-based
sectors, which together account for over eighty percent of the ECCE workforce. Moreover,
improvements within home-based child care have been particularly remarkable. To the extent
that the characteristics we analyzed are, in fact, good proxies of ECCE quality, our findings
would imply a narrowing in the quality gap between home-based and other more formalized
types of child care. This is an important finding because as recently as 2005, the home-based
sector, historically singled out as the lowest-quality sector within child care, served around
forty percent of children under five years whose mothers were employed (U.S. Census Bureau
2005), and there is some evidence that it is the preferred type of arrangement among
Hispanic families (Fuller, Holloway and Liang 1996; Liang, Fuller and Singer 2000; Fuller
2008).
25
Figure 1. Evolution of the relative and absolute importance of each ECCE sector over time (1990-2010)
Distribution of the ECCE workforce across sectors, 1990-2010
(as a % of all ECCE workers)
Number of ECCE workers, by sector (1990-2010)
1,600,000
60
1,400,000
50
1,200,000
40
1,000,000
School-based worker
30
School-based worker
800,000
Center-based worker
Center-based worker
Home-based worker
20
600,000
Home-based worker
400,000
10
200,000
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
0
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
0
26
Figure 2. Evolution of selected characteristics of the ECCE workforce over time, by sector
(1990-2010)
Share of ECCE workers with at least some college education, by sector, 1990-2009
(as a % of ECCE workers in each sector)
Mean hourly earnings of full-year ECCE workers, by sector, 1990-2009
(at 2010 dollars)
20
100
90
80
15
70
60
All ECCE workers
50
School-based worker
40
Center-based workers
All ECCE workers
10
School-based worker
Center-based worker
Home-based workers
30
Home-based worker
5
20
10
Average occupational prestige of workers who moved from a non-ECCE job to the
ECCE workforce, in the year before they entered ECCE, by sector that they enter,
1990-2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
0
1992
0
ECCE industry turnover rate by sector, 1990-2010
(% of workers who left the industry from one year to the next)
40
70
60
30
50
ECCE enterers
40
School-based enterers
30
All ECCE workers
20
School-based worker
Center-based worker
Center-based enterers
Home-based worker
Home-based enterers
20
10
10
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
0
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
0
27
Table 1. Evolution of the ECCE workforce, and comparison to female and low-wage workers
(1990-2010)
1992
2010
2010 vs . 1992
Distribution of the workforce by educational attainment
ECCE workers
Les s tha n hi gh s chool
21.4
Hi gh s chool degree
31.5
Some col l ege or As s oci a te's degree
26.1
At l ea s t a Ba chel or's degree
20.9
11.5
26.9
33.3
28.4
-9.9
-4.6
7.2
7.5
*
*
*
*
Female workers
Les s tha n hi gh s chool
Hi gh s chool degree
Some col l ege or As s oci a te's degree
At l ea s t a Ba chel or's degree
11.5
36.0
29.2
23.2
8.1
26.4
31.9
33.6
-3.4
-9.6
2.7
10.4
*
*
*
*
Low-wage workers
Les s tha n hi gh s chool
Hi gh s chool degree
Some col l ege or As s oci a te's degree
At l ea s t a Ba chel or's degree
20.5
38.9
26.7
13.9
17.0
33.5
31.1
18.4
-3.5
-5.4
4.4
4.5
*
*
*
*
1990
2009
2009 vs . 1990
Mean annual earnings of all workers (at 2010 dollars)
ECCE workers
10,746
Female workers
24,427
Low-wage workers
18,266
16,215
30,629
21,298
51% *
25% *
17% *
11.7
19.0
14.2
33% *
17% *
6% *
Mean hourly earnings of full-year workers (at 2010 dollars)
ECCE workers
8.8
Female workers
16.3
Low-wage workers
13.4
Share of workers with pension and/or health benefits paid at least partly by the employer
ECCE workers
19.0
28.0
9.0 *
Female workers
56.4
57.9
1.5 *
Low-wage workers
42.5
42.2
-0.3
Industry turnover rate
ECCE workers
Female workers
Low-wage workers
1990
2010
32.9
24.7
26.5
23.6
17.9
19.1
2010 vs . 1990
Average occupational prestige in the year before entering the workforce
ECCE workforce enterers
37.6
42.3
Low-wage workforce enterers
41.8
42.0
-9.3 *
-6.8 *
-7.4 *
4.7
0.2
* denotes change with respect to 1990 or 1992 is statistically significantly different from
zero at the 5% level.
Changes in the share of workers by educational attainment, the share with pension and/or
health benefits, and the industry turnover rate are measured in percentage points;
changes in annual and hourly earnings, as a percent change; and changes in the average
occupational prestige score of those entering the ECCE workforce, in percentiles.
Source: Authors based on the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey.
28
Table 2. Evolution of the ECCE workforce by sector (1990-2010)
Center-based workers
1992
2010
Distribution of the workforce by educational attainment
Les s tha n hi gh s chool
12.3
Hi gh s chool degree
32.7
Some col l ege or As s oci a te's degree
33.3
At l ea s t a Ba chel or's degree
21.6
Home-based workers
1992
2010
School-based workers
1992
2010
9.8
30.0
36.6
23.7
37.6
34.5
21.8
6.1
19.8 *
30.9
34.3 *
15.0 *
5.3
20.6
17.5
56.6
5.1
12.0 *
21.7
61.2
2009
1990
2009
1990
2009
10,809
14,567 *
6,480
12,415 *
24,191
27,014
Mean hourly earnings of full-year workers
(at 2010 dollars)
9.2
10.9 *
5.6
8.9 *
17.5
18.2
Share of workers with pension and/or
health benefits paid at least partly by the
employer
20.4
24.5
3.1
7.6 *
64.3
68.8
1990
2010
1990
2010
1990
2010
Industry turnover rate
34.0
24.4 *
36.9
28.5 *
15.9
13.6
Average occupational prestige in the year
before entering the ECCE workforce
41.3
44.6
32.3
33.4
51.4
54.1
1990
Mean annual earnings of all workers (at
2010 dollars)
* denotes change with respect to 1990 or 1992 is statistically significantly different from zero at the 5% level.
Source: Authors based on the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey.
29
Table 3. Decomposition of the overall changes in the characteristics of the ECCE workforce
(1990-2010)
Distribution of the workforce by educational attainment
Les s tha n hi gh s chool
Hi gh s chool degree
Some col l ege or As s oci a te's degree
At l ea s t a Ba chel or's degree
Change attributable to
changes in the
characteristics of workers
within the sectors
Change attributable to
changes in the distribution
of workers across sectors
2010 vs . 1992
2010 vs . 1992
-8.8
-4.0
7.4
5.4
(65%)
(84%)
(84%)
(58%)
2009 vs . 1990
-4.7
-0.8
1.4
3.9
(35%)
(16%)
(16%)
(42%)
2009 vs . 1990
Mean annual earnings of all workers (at 2010 dollars)
42%
(78%)
12%
(22%)
Mean hourly earnings of full-year workers (at 2010 dollars)
25%
(72%)
10%
(28%)
Share of workers with pension and/or health benefits paid at least
partly by the employer
4.3
(48%)
4.7
(52%)
2010 vs . 1990
2010 vs . 1990
Industry turnover rate
-8.1
(86%)
-1.3
(14%)
Average occupational prestige in the year before entering the
ECCE workforce
2.1
(49%)
2.1
(51%)
Changes in the share of workers by educational attainment, the share with pension and/or health benefits, and the industry turnover
rate are measured in percentage points; changes in annual and hourly earnings, as a percent change; and changes in the average
occupational prestige score of those entering the ECCE workforce, in percentiles.
Source: Authors based on the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey.
30
Table 4. Sector contributions to the part of the change in the ECCE workforce that is
explained by changes in the characteristics of workers within the sectors (1990-2010)
Center-based
workers
Home-based
workers
School-based
workers
2010 vs . 1992
Distribution of the workforce by educational attainment
Les s tha n hi gh s chool
12%
Hi gh s chool degree
28%
Some col l ege or As s oci a te's degree
19%
At l ea s t a Ba chel or's degree
16%
88%
39%
73%
71%
0%
32%
8%
13%
Mean annual earnings of all workers (at
2010 dollars)
37%
2009 vs . 1990
55%
8%
Mean hourly earnings of full-year workers
(at 2010 dollars)
35%
60%
4%
Share of workers with pension and/or
health benefits paid at least partly by the
employer
41%
45%
14%
Industry turnover rate
53%
2010 vs . 1990
44%
4%
Average occupational prestige in the year
before entering the ECCE workforce
58%
28%
14%
Source: Authors based on the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey.
31
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