Child Care Licensing Study, United States, 2017 (ICPSR 37700)
Version Date: Oct 31, 2022 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Sheri Fischer, United States Department of Health and Human Services. Administration for Children and Families. National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance;
Tara Orlowski, National Association for Regulatory Administration
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37700.v3
Version V3 (see more versions)
Summary View help for Summary
The 2017 Child Care Licensing Study provides information collected about child care licensing programs and policies and the facility requirements for child care centers, family child care homes, and group child care homes for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Limited center regulations data are available for U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
The data about state licensing policies, including facility monitoring, enforcement of licensing regulations, and licensing program staff, were gathered by the National Association for Regulatory Administration (NARA) in the 2017 NARA Child Care Licensing Programs and Policies Survey. NARA sent an online survey to all state child care licensing agencies in March 2018. Respondents submitted their answers via Survey Monkey, and by January 2019, all states had responded.
The data from the Licensing Survey cover the following topical areas:
- Number of licensed facilities
- Complaint investigations
- Licensing staff
- Enforcement actions
- Types of inspections
- Licensing information on the Internet
- Frequency of inspections
- Licensing fees
- Frequency of licensing
- Licensing staff requirements
- Inspections and monitoring
- Licensing's role in quality initiatives
The data about licensing requirements for child care centers, family child care homes, and group child care homes were collected by the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance from the regulations posted on the National Database of Child Care Licensing Regulations that were in effect as of December 31, 2017. The licensing regulations data cover the following areas:
- Licensing regulations
- Additional staff training requirements
- Definition of licensed child care centers
- Child-staff ratios and group size
- Staff roles and age requirements
- Supervision of children
- Staff qualifications and ongoing training requirements
- Care of children
- Facility requirements and
- Staff hiring requirements
The same web site was used to collect licensing regulations covering the above listed topics for small family child care homes and large/group family child care homes.
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
State
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
The licensing study and research briefs are a joint effort between the National Association for Regulatory Administration (NARA) and the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance. The following briefs are being disseminated in conjunction with the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance:
Trends In Child Care Center Licensing Regulations And Policies For 2017
Trends In Family Child Care Home Licensing Regulations And Policies For 2017
Trends In Group Child Care Home Licensing Regulations And Policies For 2017
Due to the limitations of various statistical software packages for lengthy qualitative/open-ended data, variables greater than 244 characters will be truncated. The full responses are available in Microsoft Excel format (.csv).
Many of the variables in the State Licensing Programs and Policies Data are the same question asked for different types of child care facilities. The following is a key of the common abbreviations found in the variable names.
C: Child Care Center
F: Small Family Child Care Home
LF: Large/Group Family Child Care Home
For the 2017 data, checkboxes were used for some variables. This led to changes in their variable coding to assist with data analysis, as states may be coded under more than one category. These changes have created some variance in variable names, labels, and value labels compared to prior years. Variables that contain _17 or _2017 in their variable name designate that the variable is for the 2017 version of the data. The vast majority of the variables can be analyzed across the data in the Child Care Licensing Study series. Some new variables were added in 2017.Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The role of licensing in the early care and education system is to provide a mandatory floor of program standards and monitoring that will protect children from physical harm and enhance learning and development. Within the early care and education system, licensing covers the broadest content, the largest number of children ages birth to school-age, and the largest population of providers.
Using data compiled from state child care licensing regulations and the results of a survey of state licensing agencies, research briefs examine the state of licensing in 2017 and identify trends that have become apparent during several years of data collection. The findings provide evidence that states are making positive changes in their licensing requirements and policies to protect the health and safety of children in out-of-home care.
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Universe View help for Universe
State child care licensing agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories of Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands.
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Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Responses to the survey were received from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Regulations and statutes were reviewed from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2020-09-03
Version History View help for Version History
2022-10-31 All datasets, ICPSR codebooks, and data producer codebooks were updated. Data for Guam and Virgin Islands were added to DS3 and DS4.
2020-09-08 Corrections were made to the documentation.
2020-09-03 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Performed consistency checks.
- Created variable labels and/or value labels.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
ICPSR usually offers files in multiple formats for researchers to be able to access data and documentation in formats that work well within their needs. If you have questions about the accessibility of materials distributed by ICPSR or require further assistance, please visit ICPSR’s Accessibility Center.