Childcare Landscape Study - Flipbook - Page 8
Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study Results
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This reality underscores why child care centers often cannot set tuition equal to the estimated
cost of high-quality care as a strategy for increasing educator pay to ensure a living wage and
benefits without risking pricing most families out of the market.
Figure 5: Percent of Median Household Income Required to Cover High-Quality Child Care Costs
Household
Type
One-parent
household
Number of
Children
Davidson County
Median Income
Annual (Monthly)
Estimated Cost of
High-Quality Care
Annual (Monthly)
Percent of
Household Income
Needed to Cover
Child Care
1 infant
$51,792 ($4,316)
$41,484 ($3,457)
80%
1 infant & 1 toddler
$51,792 ($4,316)
$74,232 ($6,186)
143%
Source: 2025 Davidson County Child Care Cost Estimation Model. The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, 2025. American
Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates. Note: Calculations assume that families do not use a child care certificate (subsidy).
The Monthly True Cost of High-Quality Home-Based Child Care Ranges from
$1,669 to $2,158
Home-based child care programs are typically much smaller than centers and operate out of
a private residence. Tennessee child care regulations divide home-based child care into two
categories: family home-based programs and group home-based programs.
The estimated true cost of high-quality family home-based care is $2,158 per month per
child across all ages. This framework includes capacity and staffing for seven children.
The estimated true cost of high-quality group home-based child care is $1,669 per child
across all ages. This estimate includes capacity and staffing for up to 12 children up to
school age and three additional school age children.
Conclusion
The Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study provides a detailed look into the local
center-based and home-based child care supply, ECE workforce, and estimated costs of
providing high-quality child care.
Across greater Davidson County, 246 center-based child care programs offer approximately
22,000 child care slots. This supply, however, provides only enough center-based child care
slots for just over half of all children under age 5 in the region with all parents working, and
infant care is especially scarce. Licensed home-based child care programs represent an
exceedingly small share of the region’s child care supply and do little to fill the gap.
Centers employ more than 4,000 early childhood educators with varying levels of education
and experience. On average across centers, the share of educators with only a high school
degree or less is equal to the share holding a bachelor’s degree or higher (36%), and two-thirds
of educators have 3 or more years of experience in ECE.
Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center 2025
www.pn3policy.org
