Taryn W Morrissey, Scott W Allard, Elizabeth Pelletier
{"title":"Access to Early Care and Education in Rural Communities: Implications for Children's School Readiness.","authors":"Taryn W Morrissey, Scott W Allard, Elizabeth Pelletier","doi":"10.7758/rsf.2022.8.3.04","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study links county-level early care and education (ECE) program, economic, and demographic data to child-level data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2010-2011 to examine geographic variation in ECE program participation and provision. We find that public ECE programs, particularly Head Start, occupy a larger role in nonmetropolitan communities than in metropolitan areas. By contrast, children in rural counties are less likely to attend private center-based ECE, and nonprofit childcare program expenditures in rural areas lag. We also find rural-metropolitan differences in school readiness diminish when geographic characteristics are controlled. Results suggest that county-level context and state-level policy features shape children's early experiences, and that public ECE investments are key in narrowing disparities in ECE attendance and in children's outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":51709,"journal":{"name":"Rsf-The Russell Sage Journal of the Social Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/d3/86/nihms-1868649.PMC10575474.pdf","citationCount":"6","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Rsf-The Russell Sage Journal of the Social Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2022.8.3.04","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/5/12 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 6
Abstract
This study links county-level early care and education (ECE) program, economic, and demographic data to child-level data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2010-2011 to examine geographic variation in ECE program participation and provision. We find that public ECE programs, particularly Head Start, occupy a larger role in nonmetropolitan communities than in metropolitan areas. By contrast, children in rural counties are less likely to attend private center-based ECE, and nonprofit childcare program expenditures in rural areas lag. We also find rural-metropolitan differences in school readiness diminish when geographic characteristics are controlled. Results suggest that county-level context and state-level policy features shape children's early experiences, and that public ECE investments are key in narrowing disparities in ECE attendance and in children's outcomes.