Childcare Landscape Study - Flipbook - Page 36
Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study Results
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expenses to enable providers to cope with unanticipated expenses. Finally, we distributed
the total across the children enrolled at the center to obtain the cost(s) of care.
Almost all expenses are distributed equally across all children enrolled at the model child
care center, family home-based program, or group home-based program, the sole exception
being that we distributed the wages and benefits of classroom educators at the model center
exclusively to that age group. Thus, only the model child care center has a cost of care that
is differentiable across infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, whereas the model home-based
child care programs do not differentiate the cost of care by age.
Limitations of the Study
The Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study uses rigorous research methods to
provide new data on the local child care system; however, several limitations should be
considered when reviewing the results.
First, the center-based analytic sample is not fully representative of the full population of
eligible providers, with larger centers and providers located in areas with a higher median
income overrepresented. The sample is balanced on other key characteristics, including
certificate acceptance and neighborhood poverty level. Ideally, to account for over- or
underrepresentation in the sample, estimates would be weighted using a joint adjustment across
all unbalanced characteristics. However, the relatively small analytic sample limited our ability
to construct stable multi-dimensional weights. Consequently, we prioritized weighting by
licensed capacity. We also calculated center-level averages for key workforce characteristics to
ensure that estimates reflect the typical center rather than being disproportionately influenced
by centers in higher-income areas or those employing more educators.
Second, study results rely on self-reported data from the Child Care Provider Survey.
Respondents were allowed to skip questions, which resulted in small differences in sample
size across survey items because of item-level missingness.
Third, to create the CEM, we used cost input values that are as close to local and as up-to-date
as possible. For many of the models’ inputs, precise cost estimates for Davidson County are
not available, so we relied on statewide Tennessee estimates. Relatedly, some cost estimates
also do not scale with the size of the child care program or the age of the child in care. CEM
model inputs are current as of November 1, 2025.
Lastly, the majority of center-based programs in greater Davidson County do not serve
school-age children (i.e., through before- and after-school programming and/or over school
holidays). Cost estimates for all age groups would vary somewhat for programs that serve
school-age children. Our model cannot account for all the different structures and sizes of
programs; however, it represents common features of programs in Davidson County to
create as accurate a cost model as possible. Other cost models face similar limitations.
Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center 2025
www.pn3policy.org
