Child-care costs have risen for parents since 2001, and children are spending less time in center-based early-education programs, according to a new analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics.
From 2001 to 2012, the average cost of center-based care for children ages 5 and under rose from $4.23 per hour to $6.70. By contrast, care by relatives rose from $2.66 to $4.18 per hour. In that time, the percentage of children cared for by someone other than their parents stayed the same—about 60 percent of the nearly 24 million children in that age group. The portion of young children cared for by only relatives rose from 14 percent to 16 percent.
NCES researchers looked at data from a nationally representative sample of children from birth through age 5 (who had not yet started kindergarten) in the federal early-childhood program-participation survey.
