Weekly center-based care--good choices and easy to find: Percent of children from birth through age 5 and not yet in kindergarten whose parents reported finding a good choice of child care programs available and with little or no difficulty, by child and family characteristics by child and family characteristics: 2019

Characteristics	Reported they had a good choice of programs available		Had little to no difficulty finding care
Total	74		52

Child’s race/ethnicity
Asian or Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic	70		52
Black, non-Hispanic	63		50
Hispanic	68		44
White, non-Hispanic	80		57
Other race, non-Hispanic¹	77		49

Highest education level of parents/guardians
Less than high school	66		39	!
High school/GED	70		48
Vocational/technical or some college	63		48
Bachelor’s degree	78		56
Graduate or professional degree	79		54

English spoken at home by parents/guardians²
Both/only parent(s)/guardian(s) speak(s) English	75		53
One of two parents/guardians speaks English	56	!	40	!
No parent/guardian speaks English	63		43

Recency of immigration³
Child born outside the U.S.	69		53
Hispanic	‡		‡
Non-Hispanic	78		62
First generation	66		44
Hispanic	57		39
Non-Hispanic	70		47
Second generation or higher	77		55
Hispanic	76		47
Non-Hispanic	77		56

Poverty status⁴
At or below poverty threshold	66		43
Between poverty threshold and 200 percent of poverty threshold	64		39
At or above 200 percent of poverty threshold	77		56

Locale of child's household⁵
City	72		48
Suburban	78		56
Town	71		52
Rural	69		52

!Interpret data with caution. The coefficient of variation (CV) for this estimate is between 30 and 50 percent.
‡Reporting standards not met. Either there are too few cases for a reliable estimate or the coefficient of variation (CV) is 50 percent or greater.
¹ "Other race, non-Hispanic" includes American Indian/Alaska Native children who are not Hispanic, children who are Two or more races and not Hispanic, and non-Hispanic children whose parents did not choose any race from the categories provided on the race item in the questionnaire.
² Complete descriptions of the categories for English spoken at home by parents/guardians are as follows: (1) Both parents/guardians or the only parent/guardian learned English first or currently speak(s) English in the home, (2) One of two parents/guardians in a two-parent/guardian household learned English first or currently speaks English in the home, and (3) No parent/guardian learned English first and both parents/guardians or the only parent/guardian currently speak(s) a non-English language in the home.
³ Children born outside the U.S. were not born in any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or the Northern Marianas. Children defined as "first generation" were born in the United States, but one or both of their parents were born outside the United States. Children defined as "second generation or higher" were born in the United States, as were both of their parents. Children born abroad to U.S.-citizen parents are considered born in the United States and counted as "second generation or higher."
⁴ The poverty threshold is a dollar amount determined by the federal government and updated annually to account for inflation, and which varies depending on a family's size and composition. Thresholds used to define poverty are based on weighted averages from 2018 Census poverty thresholds. In 2018, for example, the weighted average poverty threshold for a family of four was $25,701. Survey respondents are asked to select the range within which their income falls, rather than giving the exact amount of their income; therefore, the measure of poverty status is an approximation.
⁵ Locale of child’s household classifies the residential ZIP code into a set of four major locale categories: city, suburban, town, rural.
NOTE: Estimates represent 4,947,000 children and include children who have at least one regularly scheduled weekly center-based care arrangement and whose parent searched for care for the child. Center-based arrangements include day care centers, Head Start programs, preschools, prekindergartens, and other early childhood programs.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Program Participation Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program (ECPP-NHES), 2019.