Mapping Child Care Deserts

It appears that over half of Americans live in child care deserts, areas where it is difficult to find licensed child care. The Center for American Progress has analyzed the locations of licensed child care providers in 22 states (all those that have publicly available databases of licensed child care providers) and determined that much of the USA has inadequate child care provision.

You can explore the results of the Center for American Progress's analysis on their Child Care Deserts Map. The map visualizes the child care provision in 22 states down to census tract level. The initial map view shows the percentage of people living in child care deserts in each state. If you select a state on the map you view the percentage of the population in child care deserts in each census tract in the state.

The Center for American Progress defines a child care desert as "any census tract with more than 50 children under age 5 that contains either no child care providers or so few options that there are more than three times as many children as licensed child care slots".

You can read more about the Center's findings in their article Mapping America’s Child Care Deserts.