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Childcare Use and Expenses Among Families of Different Income Levels

Abstract: As part of the Chicago Fed’s Spotlight on Childcare and the Labor Market, a targeted effort to understand how access to childcare can affect employment and the economy, we use data from a national survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau—the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)—to examine the childcare arrangements for young children (those under five years old) while their mothers were at work, in school, or otherwise not available and how much families paid for these arrangements in the recent past. We focus on the arrangements used and amounts paid by families with low incomes, particularly those living in poverty, and compare those with the arrangements used and amounts paid by families with higher incomes. To see how the Covid-19 pandemic affected these arrangements and payments, we look at how they changed between the fall of 2019, before the pandemic, and the fall of 2021, after the authorization of vaccines in the United States for adults and older children.

Keywords: Childcare;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Publication Date: 2024-09