DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38578
title: National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up, [United States], 2019-2022
title: Archival Version

description: In 2019, the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) team conducted a set of four integrated surveys of 1) households with children under age 13, 2) home-based providers, 3) center-based providers, and 4) the center-based workforce as a cross-sectional follow-up to the original 2012 NSECE. Together they characterize the supply of and demand for early care and education (ECE) in the U.S. and permit better understanding of how well families' needs and preferences mirror providers' offerings and constraints. The NSECE surveys make particular effort to measure the experiences of low-income families, as these families are the focus of a significant component of ECE and school-age public policy.
In light of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020, the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) funded a new data collection effort beginning in 2020 to learn how the pandemic was affecting ECE providers and the individuals who work directly with children in ECE settings. The NSECE project team sought to re-interview center-based providers, center-based workforce members, listed home-based providers, and unlisted and paid home-based providers, who completed surveys in the 2019 NSECE. Households participating in the 2019 NSECE were not included in the NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up. Data collection for the NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up took place across two waves between late 2020 and early 2022.
The NSECE was first conducted in 2012. Before that effort, there had been a 20-year long absence of nationally representative data on the use and availability of ECE. The NSECE was conducted again in 2019 to update the information from 2012 and shed light on how the ECE and school-age care landscape changed from 2012 to 2019. The 2019 NSECE followed a similar design as the 2012 survey, including surveying households with children under age 13, home-based providers, center-based providers, and staff working in center-based classrooms.
The 2019 NSECE is funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The project team is led by NORC at the University of Chicago, with partners Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago and Child Trends, as well as other collaborating individuals and organizations.
For additional information about this study, please see:

NSECE project page on the OPRE website
NSECE study page on NORC's website
NSECE Data Users Page
For more information, tutorials, and reports related to the NSECE, please visit the Child and Family Data Archive's Data Training Resources from the NSECE page.
description: The NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up provides rigorously-collected and
nationally-representative data about 2019 early care and education (ECE) providers and the 2019 ECE workforce
to help understand how the pandemic affected these providers and workforce members,
how the ECE supply available to families may have changed from 2019 through early
2022, and how providers and workforce members might be better supported in future
emergency situations. The availability of pre-pandemic characteristics and behaviors
from the 2019 NSECE for these samples greatly enriches the ability to understand the
experiences of ECE providers and workforce members during the pandemic.
description: The 2019 NSECE is a coordinated set of four nationally representative surveys pertaining to the supply of ECE and demand for ECE and school-age care in the United States, including the individuals working directly with children. To facilitate over-time comparisons, the 2019 NSECE largely replicates the design of the 2012 NSECE, although both are cross-sectional surveys with no intentional overlap in the households or providers that were sampled.
As in the 2012 NSECE, there are two primary sources of sample for the four surveys: a household sample and a provider sampling frame. NSECE constructed the household sample using an address-based sample of housing units in order to draw a nationally representative sample of the demand for ECE and school-age care. NSECE constructed the provider sampling frame from many administrative lists in order to draw a nationally representative sample of the supply of ECE.
Two surveys used the household sample and three surveys used the provider sampling frame. In the household sample, a household screener identified households who were eligible for the household survey and for the home-based provider survey. In the provider sampling frame, a center-based screener identified providers who were eligible for the center-based provider survey. The center-based provider survey then selected respondents for the workforce survey. Home-based providers were also selected for the home-based provider survey from the provider sampling frame. Note that the home-based provider survey includes both samples: the household sample (for unlisted providers) and the provider sampling frame (for listed providers).
In the current study, the
NSECE project team sought to re-interview center-based providers, center-based
workforce members, listed home-based providers, and unlisted and paid home-based providers, who completed surveys in the 2019 NSECE. Households participating in the
2019 NSECE were not included in the NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up. Data
collection for the NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up took place across two
waves between late 2020 and early 2022.
Unlike the 2012 and 2019 NSECE where in-person prompting and interviewing occurred, this study had no in-person contacting. Instead, sample members were contacted by mail, email, and phone. Individuals participating in the study completed the survey via a web survey or by phone with an interviewer.
description: Workforce Survey:
Administered to individuals who participated in the 2019 NSECE workforce survey: classroom-assigned instructional staff selected from completed center-based provider surveys.
Key topics include: employment during the study period, experience of pandemic assistance programs, ECE practices related to COVID-19 mitigation, interactions with parents and other staff, availability of professional development and other supports, compensation (wages and benefits), and perceived leadership and morale, as well as personal information about qualifications, attitudes toward ECE, financial hardship, food insecurity, COVID-19 vaccination, and stress, depression, and demographic information.
Center-based Provider Survey:
Administered to providers who participated in the 2019 NSECE center-based provider survey: directors of sampled ECE programs that provided care to children not yet in kindergarten.
Key topics include: center operations during the study period, experience of pandemic assistance programs, health practices related to COVID-19 mitigation, parents' concerns about ECE during the pandemic, enrollment and characteristics of children served, staffing and compensation (wages and benefits), and services provided to children/families.
Home-based Provider Survey:
Administered to individuals who participated in the 2019 NSECE home-based provider survey: individuals who provided paid care at least five hours weekly in a home-based setting to at least one child under age 13 who was not their own.
Key topics include: child care operations during the study period, employment during the pandemic, experience of pandemic assistance programs, health practices related to COVID-19 mitigation, parents' concerns about ECE during the pandemic, compensation, and enrollment and characteristics of children served, as well as personal information about financial hardship, food insecurity, COVID-19 vaccination, and stress, depression, and demographic information.
description: Please refer to the accompanying User Guides and Manuals for weighting information and usage for all datasets.
description: Response Rates: Workforce surveys:

Cumulative data files: 3,249 interviews were completed, with a weighted response rate of 69.6%.
Wave 1 data: 2,805 interviews were completed, with a weighted response rate of 59.8%.
Wave 2 data: 2,725 interviews were completed, with a weighted response rate of 58.1%.

Center-based provider surveys:

Wave 1 data: 4,800 interviews were completed, with a weighted response rate of 78.6%.
Wave 2 data (partial Spring wave): 2,349 interviews were completed, with a weighted response rate of 79.5%.
Wave 2 data (partial Fall wave): 2,914 interviews were completed, with a weighted response rate of 71.8%.

Home-based provider surveys

Wave 1 data: 3,302 interviews with listed providers were completed, with a weighted response rate of 79%. 202 interviews were completed with unlisted/paid providers, with a weighted response rate of 56%.
Wave 2 data: 2,756 interviews with listed providers were completed, with a weighted response rate of 65%. 140 interviews were completed, with a weighted response rate of 38%.
description: The COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up sample was generated from the 2019 NSECE sample design, which is a multistage probability design. In the first stage, the NSECE selected 219 primary sampling units (PSUs) across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The NSECE allocated PSUs to states by size based on the population of children under age 18 within each state. In the second stage, the NSECE selected secondary sampling units (SSUs) for the household sample. Because the experiences of low-income families are of special interest in public policy addressing ECE and school-age care, the NSECE sample design included a low-income oversample. The NSECE disproportionately selected SSUs from areas in which at least 40 percent of households had income below 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines. Altogether, the NSECE selected 747 SSUs, with 508 SSUs in these high density lower-income areas and 239 in areas with lower densities of low-income households. The large majority of PSUs in the 2019 NSECE were also part of the 2012 NSECE, although SSUs were newly sampled for 2019 within the PSUs, so census tracts overlap in the two years only by chance.
There were two primary sources of sample for the four 2019 NSECE surveys. The first was the household sample, which was an address-based sample of housing units. The NSECE project selected the household sample from the Delivery Sequence File (DSF) maintained by the United States Postal Service.
The second primary source of the 2019 NSECE sample was the provider sampling frame. The NSECE constructed a sampling frame of "listed" providers from administrative lists in order to draw a nationally representative sample of the supply of ECE. The NSECE project team built the provider sampling frame through compiling and geo-coding all available state-level and national lists of providers of ECE collected from various agencies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These lists of providers included licensing, regulation, and license-exempt lists, as well as lists of providers in specific programs such as those offering Head Start or public pre-K.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Workforce Cumulative Public-Use Dataset
DS2: Workforce Cumulative Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
DS3: Workforce Wave 1 Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
DS4: Workforce Wave 2 Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
DS5: Center-based Provider Cumulative Public-Use Dataset
DS6: Center-based Provider Cumulative Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
DS7: Center-based Provider Wave 1 Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
DS8: Center-based Provider Wave 2 Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
DS9: Home-based Provider Cumulative Public-Use Dataset
DS10: Home-based Provider Cumulative Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
DS11: Home-based Provider Wave 1 Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
DS12: Home-based Provider Wave 2 Level 1a Restricted-Use Dataset
description: Center-based providers, center-based workforce members, listed home-based providers, and unlisted and paid home-based providers who completed surveys in the 2019 NSECE. Smallest Geographic Unit: Country
description: telephone interview; web-based surveyWe encourage users to access the NSECE COVID-19 Longitudinal Follow-up manuals, user's guides, and surveys provided by NORC.This collection is related to the following studies:

National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE), [United States], 2012 (ICPSR 35519)
National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) Public-Use Files, [United States], 2019 (ICPSR 37941)
National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) Level 1 Restricted-Use Files, [United States], 2019 (ICPSR 38445)