DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37700.v3
title: Child Care Licensing Study, United States, 2017
title: Version 3

description: The 2017 Child Care Licensing Study provides information collected about child care licensing programs and policies and the facility requirements for child care centers, family child care homes, and group child care homes for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Limited center regulations data are available for U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
The data about state licensing policies, including facility monitoring, enforcement of licensing regulations, and licensing program staff, were gathered by the National Association for Regulatory Administration (NARA) in the 2017 NARA Child Care Licensing Programs and Policies Survey. NARA sent an online survey to all state child care licensing agencies in March 2018. Respondents submitted their answers via Survey Monkey, and by January 2019, all states had responded.
The data from the Licensing Survey cover the following topical areas:

Number of licensed facilities
Complaint investigations
Licensing staff
Enforcement actions
Types of inspections
Licensing information on the Internet
Frequency of inspections
Licensing fees
Frequency of licensing
Licensing staff requirements
Inspections and monitoring
Licensing's role in quality initiatives
The data about licensing requirements for child care centers, family child care homes, and group child care homes were collected by the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance from the regulations posted on the National Database of Child Care Licensing Regulations that were in effect as of December 31, 2017. The licensing regulations data cover the following areas:

Licensing regulations
Additional staff training requirements
Definition of licensed child care centers
Child-staff ratios and group size
Staff roles and age requirements
Supervision of children
Staff qualifications and ongoing training requirements
Care of children
Facility requirements and
Staff hiring requirements
The same web site was used to collect licensing regulations covering the above listed topics for small family child care homes and large/group family child care homes.
description: The role of licensing in the early care and education system is to provide a mandatory floor of program standards and monitoring that will protect children from physical harm and enhance learning and development. Within the early care and education system, licensing covers the broadest content, the largest number of children ages birth to school-age, and the largest population of providers.
Using data compiled from state child care licensing regulations and the results of a survey of state licensing agencies, research briefs examine the state of licensing in 2017 and identify trends that have become apparent during several years of data collection. The findings provide evidence that states are making positive changes in their licensing requirements and policies to protect the health and safety of children in out-of-home care.
description: Response Rates: Responses to the survey were received from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Regulations and statutes were reviewed from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: State Licensing Programs and Policies Data
DS2: State Child Care Center Regulations Data
DS3: State Small Family Child Care Home Regulations Data
DS4: State Large/Group Family Child Care Home Regulations Data
description: State child care licensing agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories of Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands. Smallest Geographic Unit: State
description: web-based surveyThe licensing study and research briefs are a joint effort between the National Association for Regulatory Administration (NARA) and the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance. The following briefs are being disseminated in conjunction with the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance:
Trends In Child Care Center Licensing Regulations And Policies For 2017
Trends In Family Child Care Home Licensing Regulations And Policies For 2017
Trends In Group Child Care Home Licensing Regulations And Policies For 2017Due to the limitations of various statistical software packages for lengthy qualitative/open-ended data, variables greater than 244 characters will be truncated. The full responses are available in Microsoft Excel format (.csv).Many of the variables in the State Licensing Programs and Policies Data are the same question asked for different types of child care facilities. The following is a key of the common abbreviations found in the variable names.
C: Child Care Center
F: Small Family Child Care Home
LF: Large/Group Family Child Care HomeFor the 2017 data, checkboxes were used for some variables. This led to changes in their variable coding to assist with data analysis, as states may be coded under more than one category. These changes have created some variance in variable names, labels, and value labels compared to prior years. Variables that contain <strong>_17</strong> or <strong>_2017</strong> in their variable name designate that the variable is for the 2017 version of the data. The vast majority of the variables can be analyzed across the data in the Child Care Licensing Study series. Some new variables were added in 2017.