Although nearly 25 percent of U.S. children grow up in nonmetropolitan areas, we have done little research on them. This oversight extends to rural child care, which receives little explicit analysis. The few existing studies of rural children produce a portrait that sometimes contradicts popular assumptions. With these statistics as a backdrop, this Digest reviews what we know about the nature of rural child care and suggests implications for practitioners and policymakers. Realities of Rural Child Care Center-based care .
Rural families experience child care differently from urban ones on a number of counts.
Center-based care, increasingly popular among American families, is less available to rural children. In many areas, lengthy distances, small and scattered populations and high transportation costs make centers impractical. Some surveys suggest that the small number of extant rural centers are of lesser quality than urban ones. Compared with urban states, rural states provide less oversight and regulation of child care, suggesting that quality may indeed be compromised. Family-based care .