Between world-class hospitals, strong parental leave policies and a top-tier education system, Massachusetts is consistently ranked among the best states — if not the best state — to have and raise children.
But new state data reveals a striking contradiction: Nearly 70% of infants in Massachusetts live in what’s known as a “childcare desert.” That means thousands of families with very young children simply don’t have access to licensed childcare options where they live.
Finding high-quality — but affordable — childcare is critical for families who might not have the flexibility to work from home, especially as more and more workplaces are requiring people to come back to the office.
Massachusetts’ Department of Early Education and Care Commissioner Amy Kershaw joined GBH’s All Things Considered guest host Saraya Wintersmith to discuss what that means for families. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Saraya Wintersmith: We’ll get into the data and what the state is doing about it in just a moment, but I want to start first by asking — because I know you’re a mother and you have two sons — what’s your reaction when you hear that most infants in the state and many toddlers live somewhere where it’s hard to find someone to care for them?
Amy Kershaw: Those providers and programs were essential to supporting [my kids’] growth and development, and my opportunity for economic mobility and career growth. So, I come to this work both personally and professionally.
We understand that families across the commonwealth are challenged with accessing and affording child care. We are making investments that are increasing access and quality in a way that’s leading the country — while at the same time, recognizing the challenges that many, many families are facing.
Wintersmith: Obviously, when we reference a desert, we’re giving the gist that something we’re looking for is hard to find. But can you tell us what the state’s definition is of a childcare desert?
Kershaw: Childcare deserts are communities with one or fewer formal childcare seats for every three children. That’s a definition that we’re using for the purposes of this research that we’ve recently released, and it’s definitely something that is used fairly widely across the nation.
Wintersmith: And now, to the data. Can you walk us through what it reveals? What does it say about regions across the state, age groups or income levels — if anything?
Kershaw: This preliminary data that we’ve released, while not perfect, begins to give us some clear indications of where — by age group, by income and by geography — some families may be struggling more than others, and where additional resources may be needed.
As we mentioned, [for] infants and toddlers in particular, we know that about 28% have access to formal care across the commonwealth, whereas for preschoolers, we know we have about 71% of licensed or formal capacity for the total number of preschoolers in the population.
For our lowest-income families, who often have access to a greater portion of subsidies to enroll their children in formal childcare settings, they have a higher percentage [of their children] enrolled. And then, at the other end of the income spectrum, we often see higher-income families also being able to enroll their children at a higher rate. It’s our low- and moderate-income families where we’re seeing even greater challenges in accessing the formal care market.
This preliminary data gives us a good indication of where we might need to study more, and also dig greater into family preferences. Families with infants may have different preferences about the kind of care options they want than families with older children.
Wintersmith: Even though we recognize that the data is preliminary, can we say anything about the driving factors behind this gap? Are there capacity limitations, workforce shortages or licensing barriers?
Kershaw: We know in Massachusetts, we have among the highest costs for child care, and we know there’s a challenge in the market to be able to find and retain qualified teachers. One of the challenges that we look at is really making sure that we’re supporting the stability and supply of programs.
Massachusetts is really the only state in the country that has preserved what was a federal child care stabilization program. In Massachusetts, we call it the Commonwealth Cares for Children program, or C3. It was launched in the middle of the pandemic to really keep stability in the field as programs saw enrollment drop.
This investment in our programs — it’s a $470 million program annually, now — we attribute a lot of the growth that we’ve seen in the childcare sector over the last several years to the investments through the Commonwealth Cares for Children program.
We know we have more work to do. As we know, families are challenged in accessing care, especially our families with infants. But we are absolutely heading in the right direction here in Massachusetts.
Wintersmith: I want to give you the last word here in our final 60 seconds. You’ve talked a bit about how the department is responding to the gaps. How is the state advising parents to find childcare, given the reality of the deserts?
Kershaw: I want to mention two things. One, we are working on modernizing our information technology systems, and that means family-facing information about where to find childcare, how to afford childcare, and how to get help paying for childcare. All of that is predicated on new investments in our information technology systems that can be family-facing and give them more information. As we build the supply and increase the number of programs that are available to families, we’ll be able to use those tools to reach more families.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that in addition to the work happening at the department to invest in the workforce, our programs, our families and increasing their purchasing power, we recognized in the Healey-Driscoll administration that it’s going to take more than just the department and our investments.
A year and a half ago, the governor created an interagency task force on childcare and early education. It brings together all of the secretariats from across state government to take a whole-of-government approach to childcare. I also think this is somewhat unique across the country. So, in addition to the direct investments that we’re making in childcare, we’ve really recognized that building the supply and addressing the affordability issues that we’ve talked about today in this program are going to require all of our partners across state government.
We have our Economic Development Secretariat, our Secretariat of Labor and Workforce Development and our Education Secretariat, who are chairing this, working across all of the state government agencies — Housing, Information Technology, Health and Human Services — and the assignment for our task force is to make sure that we’re turning over every rock within our resources, whether it’s how we support small businesses, how we work on transportation to make sure that we are investing in early education and care from across all of the state government.
I do think the combination of understanding through the data where our needs are, what the experience of families has been, and what their interests and needs are, combined with direct investments in the childcare system and working across state government to think about the resources needed across the state to invest in early education and care, will continue to help us be able to meet the needs of families.
