Granite Guide to Early Childhood Primer 2 - Fall 2024 - New Hampshire’s Child Care Landscape

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jake

Granite Guide to Early Childhood Primer #2 synthesizes evidence on New Hampshire’s early care and education supply, focusing on the state’s regulated and unregulated child care landscape for children under age 5. It explains how licensed centers dominate the supply while workforce limits, pandemic effects, and geographic consolidation reduce usable capacity and strain options for working families. Key findings highlight slot growth alongside provider declines and shortages that remain uneven across zip codes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages2

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Key Findings

Child Care Centers: Predominant Portion of New Hampshire’s ECE Supply

Unfilled Slots and Workforce Constraints

Geographic Consolidation of Slots

Complex Systemic Challenges Drive ECE Offerings

About the Authors

NH EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION RESEARCH CONSORTIUM Granite Guide to Early Childhood Primer \#2 Fall 2024 Fewer Providers, Longer Distances: New Hampshire’s Child Care Landscape Jess Carson and Harshita Sarup TheGrserCaaniiesrstehey~~ ~~SchoGuide~~ ~~tighlightolos~~ ~~ioEssf~~ ~~Parlueu~~y~~sblicChilsurrPolicy’sdhoodounding early care and education in New Hampshire by synthesizing evidence on a set of interconnected topics. This primer focuses on New Hampshire’s “supply” of child care. For more detail about the series, including its other featured topics, visit this link. Child Care Centers: Predominant Portion of New Hampshire’s ECE Supply New Hampshire’s early care and education (ECE) landscape spans a variety of settings (see Figure 1). Most of the state’s child care for children under age 5 is supplied by 646 licensed child care providers, largely (83 percent) licensed child care centers.1 New Hampshire’s ECE offerings are regulated to different degrees. Along with licensed childcare centers, the state also oversees a smaller set of licensed home-based providers. Some local school districts offer preschool programming, primarily serving children with disabilities with IDEA Part B funds and locally raised supplemental funds, serving about 5,000 children statewide. About 1,500 Head Start and Early Head Start slots round out the state’s regulated offerings.2 In addition, two types ofunregulated home-based care meet family needs, including providers who are unlicensed and unpaid (e.g., relatives) and providers who are unlicensed but paid (e.g., license-exempt providers, babysitters). | Key Findings | | | --- | --- | |

| Licensed child care centers make up the majority of New Hampshire’s early care and education landscape, although family needs are also met through licensed home-based providers, unlicensed providers like relatives, and federal programs like Head Start.
Between 2017 and 2024, New Hampshire gained about 2,100 slots among providers serving children under age 5, despite losing 13 percent of licensed providers serving that age group.
These closures consolidated available supply into fewer, larger child care centers.
This consolidation further exacerbates the state’s uneven capacity to meet working parents’ needs; more slots in amore robust mix of settings is necessary to align the two. | However, total regulated capacity does not necessarily represent the number of children using that kind of care, nor its true availability. For instance, in 2023, New Hampshire Head Start served fewer children than the number of funded slots. Additionally, many licensed providers face workforce constraints that prevent them from filling all available slots. The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated these issues, causing temporary closures and lasting impacts on child care availability. Data from 2021 suggests that one-inthree of New Hampshire’s licensed slots was unfilled. New England Center • 15 Strafford Avenue • Durham, NH 03824 •(603) 862-2821 TTY Users: Dial 7-1-1 or 1-800-735-2964 (Relay N.H.)• [carsey.unh.edu](carsey.unh.edu) Access Online 2 C A R S E Y SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY Figure 1. New Hampshire’s Early Care and Education Supply for Children Under 5 New Hampshire zip codes. By 2024, this fell to 173 zip codes, with closures disproportionately impacting less-populous zip codes.5 While families don’t necessarily need care in their own zip code, these losses strain an already-inadequate supply. Earlier work in New Hampshire found about one licensed child care slot for every three children who lived within a 20-minute drive. Availability for the youngest Granite Staters is especially challenging: in 2024, while 99 percent of New Hampshire providers offered school-age care, just 56 percent served infants. These shortages are visible to New Hampshire families, who most commonly chose “no openings”(along with “not affordable”) as challenges they faced when seeking care. Source: A

FAQs

What share of New Hampshire’s early care supply comes from licensed centers?

Most supply for children under age 5 is provided by licensed child care centers, which account for about 83 percent of the licensed providers’ portion described in the primer.

How did New Hampshire’s child care slots and licensed providers change from 2017 to 2024?

From 2017 to 2024, New Hampshire gained about 2,100 slots among providers serving children under age 5 while losing about 13 percent of licensed providers serving that age group.

Why can regulated capacity be higher than the number of children actually served?

Total regulated capacity does not guarantee children’s access because many funded slots remain unfilled and providers can face workforce constraints that prevent filling available openings, with COVID-19 worsening availability through closures and lasting impacts.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jake