Claire Miech
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Jun Li
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Technology and Operations / Business
Program: UROP
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Authors:
Abstract
There is currently a child care crisis in the United States, with the demand for child care exceeding its supply. Child care availability is measured as the ratio of child care supply, the number of staff available to directly care for children, to demand in a census tract, the number of children under five years old, in the same census tract. In the majority of United States census tracts, demand exceeds supply, with more children under five than employees to care for them. Nearly half of United States census tracts are child care deserts, where child care demand is or exceeds six times the availability. This research project aims to visualize the child care crisis by mapping child care availability on a continuous scale across the United States, as well as a discrete map of where child care deserts are in the United States. The aim of this research project is to create a reference to compare to other variables such as income, racial demographics, or general career success in the same census tract, adding to a growing body of research on the effects of child care availability.
