PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Taryn W. Morrissey
AU  - Scott W. Allard
AU  - Elizabeth Pelletier
TI  - Access to Early Care and Education in Rural Communities: Implications for Children’s School Readiness
AID  - 10.7758/RSF.2022.8.3.04
DP  - 2022 May 01
TA  - RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
PG  - 100--123
VI  - 8
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/8/3/100.short
4100  - http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/8/3/100.full
AB  - This study links county-level early care and education (ECE) program, economic, and demographic data to child-level data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2010–2011 to examine geographic variation in ECE program participation and provision. We find that public ECE programs, particularly Head Start, occupy a larger role in nonmetropolitan communities than in metropolitan areas. By contrast, children in rural counties are less likely to attend private center-based ECE, and nonprofit childcare program expenditures in rural areas lag. We also find rural-metropolitan differences in school readiness diminish when geographic characteristics are controlled. Results suggest that county-level context and state-level policy features shape children’s early experiences, and that public ECE investments are key in narrowing disparities in ECE attendance and in children’s outcomes.