Child Care Equity Study

Policy Reform to Advance Equity in Illinois’ Child Care Subsidy Program

Study Overview

This study looks at the impact of federal subsidy policy changes on family friend and neighbor (FFN) providers serving families who use child care subsidies (CCAP). In response to the 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDGB) that funds CCAP, Illinois made policy changes to CCAP in 2017 to improve access, quality and stability in child care in response to the 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDGB) that funds CCAP. Illinois: 1) enacted new training requirements for all home-based child care provider receiving CCAP (including FFN providers) and 2) extended CCAP eligibility from 6 to 12 months. By engaging in case studies, parent and provider interviews, and analysis of administrative data, this project considers social equity implications of these new subsidy policies.

Collaborators

This research is a collaboration between the University of Chicago and Illinois Action for Children
Co-Principal Investigators: Julia Henly, PhD and David Alexander, PhD
Support from: Robert Hughes, PhD and Brenda Eastham of the Child Care Resource Service (CCRS).

Funding

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Study Results and Publications

Journal Article

Reducing childcare subsidy instability through eligibility period extensions: Equity impacts of 12-month recertification requirements

Published in: Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Volume 71, 2025

Summary: Using Illinois’ longitudinal administrative payment records, this study examines whether a shift from a 6-month to a 12-month eligibility period contributes to lengthened periods on subsidy and whether this effect had particular benefits for home-based providers, especially license-exempt family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) caregivers. We find that median subsidy spell lengths were longer during a 12-month than a 6-month eligibility period, suggesting that a longer eligibility period established by the 2014 reauthorization increased subsidy duration and helped promote equity in sustained access to subsidies, with potential implications for fostering equitable access to childcare, family economic security, and children’s healthy development.

The 12-month eligibility period is associated with greater subsidy stability.
Subsidy stability is improved for all families using different types of childcare.
Families who use a FFN care show the largest increase after the policy change.
The policy change reduces the gap in subsidy spell duration by provider types.
Results suggest that the policy change promotes equitable access to childcare.

The 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care Development Block Grant Act required that states and territories set their program eligibility period to be at least 12 months in length. This was designed to address premature program disruptions related to difficulties with the recertification process. Subsidy instability can undermine the multidimensional goal of providing equitable access to childcare. Using Illinois’ longitudinal administrative payment records, this study examines whether a shift from a 6-month to a 12-month eligibility period contributes to lengthened periods on subsidy and whether this effect had particular benefits for home-based providers, especially license-exempt family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) caregivers. We find that median subsidy spell lengths were longer during a 12-month than a 6-month eligibility period. Cox proportional hazards models that account for observable differences before and after the policy change indicate that the policy change is associated with a lower risk of leaving the subsidy program even after 12-months on the program. We also find equity benefits to the change: families who use FFN caregivers benefited most from the extended eligibility period. Our finding suggests that a longer eligibility period established by the 2014 reauthorization increased subsidy duration and helped promote equity in sustained access to subsidies, with potential implications for fostering equitable access to childcare, family economic security, and children’s healthy development.

Hong, Y. S., Henly, J. R., Alexander, D. (2025). Reducing childcare subsidy instability through eligibility period extensions: Equity impacts of 12-month recertification requirements. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 71(2), 151-162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2024.12.010.

Full Journal Article

Research Brief & Technical Report

Unintended and Inequitable Impacts of a 2017 Policy Change for License-Exempt Home Child Care

Summary: Announcing new training requirements discouraged many FFN providers from participating in CCAP and was harmful to the types of families that use FFN providers at high rates. Extending eligibility helped all families but supported some types of families that are identified in federal law as priority populations for being historically underserved.

Full research brief

Full technical report

Poster Presentation

Did Illinois’ Response to 2014 CCDBG Reauthorization Increase Equity and Child Care Stability?



Society for Research in Child Development awarded poster project as “one which best reflects policy research”

Summary: This work considers the impact of CCAP policy changes on 1) the demographic composition of clientele receiving CCAP and 2) the duration of CCAP use among population subgroups, using longitudinal CCAP administrative data.

Authors: Youngjin Stephanie Hong*, Julia R. Henly*, David Alexander**, Marcia Stoll**, Lorena Lara** (*University of Chicago, **Illinois Action for Children)

Background

Among several changes to the federal Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG), the 2014 reauthorization required states and territories to institute a 12-month program eligibility period. The 12-month eligibility floor was expected to reduce subsidy instability and administrative burden especially for parents who had difficulties reporting changes to their status and recertifying their eligibility on a frequent basis (Schulman, 2017). Prior work suggests that subsidy spells are indeed longer in states with longer subsidy program eligibility periods (Swenson, 2014; Henly et al., 2017). That said, policy changes have not uniformly resulted in increased duration due to implementation inequities and local administrative rules that sometimes result in shorter spells (Davis et al., 2016).

For Illinois, the new federal requirement would double the amount of subsidy coverage before recipients are required to redetermine their eligibility. The new law was implemented in 2018 in Illinois, moving from the prior 6-month to a 12-month eligibility period. This study tests whether the implementation of the law resulted in an increase in subsidy spells. The study applies an equity-focused lens to examine policy impacts on the duration of subsidy spells among distinct population subgroups. We ask for whom the change had the largest effect in terms of subsidy spell lengths, looking especially at family characteristics such as child age, child race/ethnicity, geography, poverty status, and child care types.

Methods

We use longitudinal Illinois Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) administrative data that span 15 months before and after the 2018 policy change – which we use to create pre-/post-policy samples. Our analyses are conducted at the focal child level, defined as the youngest child in each household. In the pre-policy sample, we include children who entered CCAP between October and December, 2016, while in the post-policy sample, children who entered CCAP between October and December, 2018 are included. We restrict our samples to children who did not receive CCAP in prior 2 years and with no missing values in all variables considered in our models. The final sample size is 7788 children.

The dependent variable, the subsidy exit, is defined as having no CCAP payment for three consecutive months. Among these exiters, the month of subsidy exit is coded as the first month of having no payment information. Thus, using total 15 months in pre-/post-policy samples, we are able to estimate children’s program duration and their risk of subsidy exit during 13 months after entering the subsidy program before and after the policy change. We also conduct analyses during a 7 month window.

We compute survival curves to estimate differences – by pre and post – in average program duration and conduct a series of Cox proportional hazard models that test whether the policy change from a 6- to 12-month eligibility period reduces the risk of exiting the subsidy program among families in different subgroups. In all models, to reduce selection bias, we control for child and family characteristics and labor market conditions – including TANF status, number of children, household structure, reason for care, and county-level unemployment rate – in addition to the pre/post indicator (=1 if a child is from the post policy window) and five subgroup variables (e.g. age, race, poverty level, geography, type of care).

The data are available through a data sharing agreement with Illinois Department of Human Services and Illinois Action for
Children.

Results Part 1

The policy change from a 6- to 12-month eligibility period reduced the risk of exiting the subsidy program.

Children remained on the subsidy program longer in the post-policy period. This was true across all subgroups examined: by type of care, age, race, geography, and poverty status.

Kaplan Meier Survival Curve (Figure 1) shows that 65% of children were still on the program at 12 months in the post-policy period, whereas only 47% were on the program at 12 months in the pre-policy period.
Kaplan Meier Survival Curves show that the pattern holds across all types of care.

Results Part 2

Regarding interactions between policy change and subgroups, the magnitude of the policy effect was moderated by age, race, and type of care but not geography or poverty status.

AGE: Whereas the risk of exiting the program in the post-policy period was lower as compared to the pre-policy period regardless of age groups, the extent of the change was greatest for the 6-8 year old group.

In a 7-month observation window, the 6-8 year olds and 9-13 years olds had a greater reduction in their risk of exiting the program as compared to 3-5 year olds, although for the 9-13 year olds, the coefficient was marginally significant (alpha<0.1). The 6-8 and 9-13 year olds showed 34-36% lower risk of exiting the program during the post policy window (than the pre policy window) compared to what the 3-5 year old group experienced from the pre to the post policy windows.
In a 13-month observation window, 6-8 year olds had a greater drop in risk of exiting as did 0-1 year olds, compared to 3-5 year olds. We find 22% and 13% lower risk for 6-8 year olds and 0-1 year olds, respectively, than 3-5 year olds. But for the 0-1 year olds, the coefficient was marginally significant (alpha<0.1).

RACE: Whereas the risk of exiting the program in the post-policy period was lower as compared to the pre-policy period for all race/ethnic groups, the extent of the change was greatest for Hispanics (but only in the 7 month window). Hispanics children showed 26% lower risk of exiting the program from the pre-policy window to the post-policy window, compared to the change that White children experienced between the pre/post policy windows.

TYPE OF CARE: Whereas the risk of exiting the program in the post-policy period was lower as compared to the pre-policy period for children in all types of care, the extent of the change was greatest for children in arrangements other than licensed
centers.

In a 7-month observation window, children in license-exempt FFN care (23% lower risk), license-exempt centers (38% lower risk), and licensed family child care (27% lower risk) had a greater drop in risk of exiting as compared to licensed centers.
In the 13-month observation window, children in license-exempt FFN care (21% lower risk) and license-exempt centers (29% lower risk) had a greater drop in risk of exiting as compared to licensed centers.

Tables

Cox Proportional Hazard – Interactions

Discussion

This study assesses whether the extension of eligibility periods (to 12-months) as required by the CCDBG Reauthorization improves the stability of subsidy use and whether it does so across population subgroups. We find consistent results across 7-
month and 13-month observation windows that the policy change from a 6- to 12-month eligibility period 1) reduced the risk of exiting the subsidy program across all population subgroups and 2) had a larger effect among school-age children (especially the 6-8 year olds) than younger children (preschoolers) as well as among those who use unlicensed child care arrangements than those using licensed centers.

Thus, our findings are encouraging as they suggest that not only did spell lengths increase for all population subgroups examined, but the change had a greater effect on families who historically had relatively short subsidy spells: school-age children, children of color (although not robust across observation windows), and children in unlicensed care arrangements. Such enhanced program stability may in turn allow CCAP to more effectively support stable employment as well as economic stability of parents and facilitate positive child development (Henly et al., 2017). Future research should further investigate the implications of increased program stability on families and children.

References

Davis, Elizabeth E., Caroline Krafft, and Nicole Forry (2016). The Role of Policy and Practice in Short Spells of Child Care Subsidy Participation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 1-20

Henly, J.R., Kim, J., Sandstrom, H., Pilarz, A., & Claessens, A. (2017). What Explains Short Spells on Child Care Subsidies? Social Service Review, 91(3): 488-533.

Schulman, K. (2017). The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014: Uneven State Implementation of Key Policies. The National Women’s Law Center. https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/NWLC-report-on-state-
implementation-of-CCDBG-reauthorization.pdf

Swenson, Kendall. 2014. “Child Care Subsidy Duration and Caseload Dynamics: A Multi- State Examination.” Report, US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Washington, DC.