Child Care Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Parents becoming conscious of childhood education and childcare - The spurt of growth in the early childcare and education market can be attributed to the heightened awareness among parents regarding the significance of early childcare and education in addition to the ongoing increase in the need for child care.
  
  One major factor as to why it is the fact that parents increasingly recognize the importance of early childcare and education in influencing their child’s development and future success. United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund has found that about 8 out of 10 o children in the age group 3-6 years are attending some form of Early Childhood Care and Education. Parents are actively selecting programs that provide organized educational experiences intensifying cognitive, social, and emotional development of children from early in life.

• Corporations provide corporate childcare to their employees - Corporations, especially those which are trying to appeal to employees in the top tier of the hiring pool, are now seeing the importance of offering childcare benefits to their workforce. A recent report unveiled that due to the lack of proper childcare solutions, organizations are losing around USD 13 billion in terms of profit and productivity annually.
  
  These companies may offer some sort of childcare, such as giving employees access to off-campus childcare centers or they may begin operations with childcare centers on-site by providing kids with a room with a baby monitor to make it possible for employees to attend to their children before and after work on site.
• Adopting innovative techniques and tools to educate children - Activities such as personalized learning, project-based learning, technology integration, and other innovative teaching methods have been shown to increase student engagement, as well as retention of content knowledge and skills. This active learning contributes to a more meaningful educational experience and has led to a demand for child care that provides these types of experiences. Such experiences nurture cognitive skills, creative problem-solving, innovation, and ingenuity.
  
  The data depicts that over the next year between 2021-2022 in the US, the count of licensed child care centers has increased by 3%. This is accomplished by providing immersive and interactive learning opportunities that provide a more comprehensive education that will set children up for future versions of superior growth and success.

Challenges

• The increase in unemployment rates - As unemployment increases, household incomes decrease and the demand for child care services decreases. Parents can choose less expensive or informal child care, especially by asking family members to babysit, which cuts into the demand for professional child care services. Additionally, the need to render childcare services sharply diminishes at large when many parents lose their jobs and are forced to stay home. Unemployed or working-from-home parents have less need for childcare.

• Considerable increase in the cost of childcare services - Expansion of the cost of babies proving some important impediments towards achieving affordable care services whereby families with low purchasing power suffer a lot. This effectively decreases demand for professional childcare services because parents will be forced to look for cheap childcare services or compromise their employment opportunities in order to take care of their children.
  
  Due to the rise in the cost of services that provide care for children, and the families who are unable to afford these services are usually of low income thus widening the daycare gap. This gap is the following: the overall minimum display of high-quality and cheap childcare facilities and their deficiency especially in marginal neighborhoods.