Oregon’s Child Care Deserts 2024: Mapping Supply by Age Group and Percentage of Publicly Funded Slots

Many families with young children live in what experts have defined as a child care desert or a community with more than three children for every regulated child care slot. This is the fourth Oregon child care desert report. This report estimates supply and demand as of December 2024 and is a follow-up to three earlier reports that tracked child care desert status of Oregon’s counties as of 2018, early 2020, and 2022. As of December 2024, 34 of Oregon’s 36 counties are child care deserts for families with infants and toddlers. In contrast, only 9 of Oregon’s 36 counties are child care deserts for preschool-age children in 2024. This increase in supply for preschool-age children has occurred gradually over time. The number of counties that are preschool child care deserts has decreased from 27 in 2018, to 25 in 2020, to 18 counties in 2022, and now 9 counties in 2024.

Publicly funded slots play a crucial role in the improvement of preschool-age supply. Although public funding makes up less than a quarter of slots across the state, without public slots, 19 additional counties would be preschool child care deserts in 2024 (28 of Oregon’s 36 counties, or 78% of counties). Even though fewer public slots are dedicated to infants and toddlers than preschool-age children, if lost all 36 counties would be deserts. Public slots also tend to play a central role in the overall supply within nonmetropolitan counties. Public slots in nonmetropolitan counties make up a larger proportion of their overall supply than in metropolitan counties.

The current report focuses on child care supply, or how much available child care exists in a community. This study provides a starting place for considering the multifaceted issues that shape a family’s access to child care. These findings should be considered alongside additional information about affordability and quality of child care to better understand the extent to which Oregon’s child care meets the needs of all Oregon children and families.