Decisions & Distance: Assessing the Relationship Between Child Care Access and Travel
Brief
Evelyn Blumenberg | Madeline Wander | Zhiyuan Yao
April 2024
Child care is essential infrastructure, but supply in the U.S. has long fallen short of demand. In California, this discrepancy varies dramatically across neighborhoods that differ by income, race/ethnicity, and location. This study seeks to address the gap in existing research on the topic of child care access, child care use, and travel. By linking household level travel survey data to a measure of child car access, researchers examine the relationships between child care access, use, and travel distance to such care for households across California. They then propose a set of recommendations to reduce spatial barriers to child care.
