For over 20 years, Sylvia Crews has worked in early childhood education, spending the last decade running her own home-based center. After buying a home in Washington, D.C., in 2015, she launched LTH Infants and Toddlers Center — an abbreviation for “loving, tender home” — shortly after. She is licensed to care for up to nine children ranging from 6 weeks to 3 1/2 years old, overseeing four employees.
Crews said she wants to work “as long as the Lord will allow me to,” but she does worry about the likelihood of younger workers entering the sector.
“At a point, I know I’ll have to stop,” said Crews, 67. But as for the next generation, “How do we get them involved? We need to bring them in,” she said.
More than half of licensed or registered home-based child care providers are over the age of 50, according to federal survey data of child care workers, while only 4 percent are 29 years old or younger. In contrast, at larger child care centers, about a third of employees are 29 or younger. The numbers are more balanced at home-based settings that aren’t registered or licensed. About 30 percent of these so-called “unlisted” providers are over 50, and a roughly equal percentage are 29 or younger.
“The aging part of the story, on its own, is not the problem,” said Katharine Sadowski, assistant professor of education at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. “But when you combine it with all the other pieces, about the composition of the workforce, of who we’ve relied on, it spells trouble.”
Child care centers, which include preschools, Head Start and prekindergarten, are the most frequently used option for nonparental care. Federal surveys found about 66 percent of children in nonparental care attend such programs. That compares to about 17 percent of children in a child care arrangement who were in home-based care.
But for many parents, home-based care is a vital alternative. Providers tend to offer more flexible hours than larger centers: Only 8 percent of larger child care centers offer care during non-traditional working hours, according to federal data, compared to more than a third of licensed home-based child care providers.
Smaller home-based centers may meet a family’s needs in other ways too, such as providing care in families’ native language or offering a specific curriculum like one focused on outdoor play, advocates said.
“We know families choose providers who eat vegan food or speak the language they like or observe the religion they like,” said Natalie Renew, executive director of Home Grown, a nonprofit focused on supporting home-based child care. “The strength of home-based child care is a very responsive service delivery. When you have a model reinforcing homogeneity, that is not good for parents.”
Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.
A federal report found that more than 97,000 small home-based providers — defined as one person as the sole caregiver — closed between 2005 and 2017.
Hayley Village has spent the last 45 years in early childhood education and the last 20 running the home-based It Takes a Village Children and Family Services, in San Mateo, California. She makes a point to ask every family about any cultural holidays they celebrate or food they eat, and then incorporates the Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo and Diwali into the curriculum.
Village, who is from England, also had her students celebrate the queen of England’s 60th year reigning by writing emails to the royal family — and receiving correspondence back.
“It’s connecting what you would do with your own children,” she said. “You embrace who they are. And when you make that connection, they feel heard and validated.”
Because home-based programs are also significantly smaller than center-based ones, they often allow for more personalized care, providers say.
“It’s a lot of pivoting. My curriculum is pretty much written entirely by me, and once you get to know the children, you know who likes the dinosaurs or who likes to cook or who likes to eat dirt — even if you don’t want them to,” Village said.
While she has no immediate plans to stop working, she has spent the last three years pondering her future retirement.
“I thought as I turn 60, it’s time to walk away and mentor the younger generation,” she said. “I can’t do some of the things I did 30 years ago.”
As the aging population nears retirement, experts worry that children will be left with fewer options for care.
“When you see a type of business going out of business, it doesn’t mean families don’t want it,” said Anna Powell, associate director of research and policy at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. “It is more of a warning bell; this is an aging group, and when centers close, they don’t come back.”
Related: Home-based child care programs are struggling to survive
Being able to afford to retire is the top concern of aging home-based child care workers, according to a report from the National Association for Family Child Care. Home-based centers do not typically offer retirement benefits. And child care, despite rising costs to families, is one of the lowest paying fields in the country.
“When you’re competing with In-N-Out Burger and Amazon drivers’ salaries, at $22, $23 an hour, you have to invest in early childhood education to keep people in the field,” Village said. “Why is it not looked at that children are tomorrow’s future? We’re brain developers.”
Those who do want to own a center often run into roadblocks. Many states require the home-based provider to own their home — an increasing rarity among young people. Village rents her three-bedroom, two-bathroom home. The house is valued at nearly $2 million, a price tag she says she would never be able to afford.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve given up on it, but to live here I would need major financial assistance,” she said.
Experts point out that even in states like California that allow renters to run home-based centers, the requirements for the property are often specific and expensive, such as hard-wired sprinkler systems and multiple exits from a basement. Even if a landlord were to permit such modifications, those systems also are pricey to maintain and can hurt the house’s resale value. And Renew said facility-related requirements often do not come with options for state or federal financial help.
“I think health and safety is important, but I think we’ve conflated them to a set of requirements with providers who can only own their homes,” she said. “We’re asking providers to make commercial improvements to residential homes.”
Some states have offered support to shore up home-based care providers. Nebraska provides up to $5,000 for starting or expanding family child care operations. Connecticut launched a program in 2024 allowing would-be providers a space to launch their child care centers, since many cannot operate out of their own homes. Louisiana used American Rescue Plan funding to offer grants to help stabilize family child care centers weathering the pandemic storm, though that program has come to an end.
But Crews said the efforts don’t go far enough. “Child care is expensive around the country; make it affordable for everyone,” she said.
Given all the challenges facing home-based child-care providers, Village said she recently decided to spend the next phase of her career away from day-to-day care at her center and in an advocacy role.
“When lawmakers make these decisions, it’s never been a truly collaborative effort,” she said. “We’ve never been at the table.”
Contact editor Christina A. Samuels at 212-678-3635 or samuels@hechingereport.org
This story about child care workers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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