Childcare Need and Supply by School District in Washington State

Statewide, DCYF estimates that families of about 305,000 children age B-5 not yet in school need child care, with only about 34% enrolled in licensed care or preschool. This dataset from data.wa.gov provides estimates of childcare demand met by licensed providers across different geographic levels. It was last updated on 2025-09-26.

Use Cases

• Analyze the relationship between Income Level and Total_Estimated_Demand Met to identify socioeconomic disparities in childcare access.
• Compare PK_Estimated Demand Met and IT_Estimated Demand Met across different Area_Name units to map regional service gaps.
• Model the supply-demand ratio using prek_slots, infant_toddler_slots, and Total_Eligible to forecast needed capacity expansions.
• Join datasets on child_geo_id to enrich demographic or economic analyses with localized childcare metrics.

Strengths

• Includes an estimated 305,000 children in its statewide need calculation.
• Provides multiple geographic aggregations via columns like Area_Name and child_geo_id.
• Offers machine-readable formats including CSV, JSON, XML, and RDF.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

data.wa.gov

Collection Method

Likely contains estimates and administrative data compiled by the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF).

Freshness

Last updated 2025-09-26 20:16:35; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Washington State, USA, with breakdowns by County, Legislative District, and Zip Code as suggested by the description.