Child-care market mechanisms: Does policy affect the quantity of care?

In the current environment, a solid majority of women with young children continue to work, and welfare reform policy holds maternal employment as its goal. Appropriate child care is therefore needed to support working parents and to promote the healthy development of their children. This article contributes to a substantial child-care literature by examining how local child-care quantities responded to policy in the United States between 1990 and 2000. Results indicate that subsidy spending and tax policy significantly affect county-level child-care expansion, with poor and rural areas responding most to policy intervention.