Arizona’s Child Care Deserts

A child care desert is a community where the availability of child care falls far short of what working families need. In these areas, parents who are employed, or seeking employment, face limited or no access to reliable child care, creating barriers to workforce participation and family stability.

For this analysis, a child care desert is defined as a county in which the number of children under age six living in working families significantly exceeds the supply of licensed child care providers. This imbalance restricts families’ ability to secure consistent child care and undermines economic mobility.

Child care deserts across Arizona were identified by comparing county-level child care supply and demand using two combined data sources:

• Demand — children under six in households where a sole parent or both parents are in the workforce, U.S. Census Bureau Table B23008 (2024)
• Supply — licensed child care providers and slots statewide, Arizona Department of Economic Security Child Care Administration, NACCRRAware database (2023)

In many child care deserts, families rely on family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) caregivers — a critical source of care that is trusted, flexible, and responsive to local needs but not fully captured in traditional child care data sets.

While FFN caregivers help fill care gaps where licensed options are limited or unavailable, they are often excluded from the supports and investments available within the licensed early care and education system. As a result, child care deserts persist even as informal care networks step in to meet community needs.

These caregivers enable parents to remain employed and sustain Arizona’s economy in the areas with the greatest child care shortages — in many of these areas, limited licensed capacity coincides with high numbers of parents in the workforce, intensifying access challenges.

Child care deserts are not isolated — they are systemic and structural, affecting families, employers, and local economies across the state. In regions where child care demand far outweighs licensed supply, working parents face limited choices: young children must either remain at home with a parent who forgoes employment, or rely on FFN care.

The concentration of missing child care slots highlights the urgent need for targeted investments in child care desert communities where working families have the fewest options.

Current investments in FFN caregivers, led by First Things First and strengthened by philanthropic partnerships, are deliberately targeted to Arizona’s child care deserts — improving early learning environments for children while stabilizing working families, strengthening local economies, and advancing Arizona’s long-term economic competitiveness.

In the highest-concentration child care deserts, FFN caregivers already function as the primary source of care — particularly for infants, toddlers, families working nontraditional hours, and rural communities. Yet these caregivers are largely excluded from the supports available within the licensed early care and education system.

There is a unique opportunity to expand access to child care by investing directly in FFN caregivers, especially in child care desert counties.

• 01Access to training, materials, and wraparound supports that strengthen caregiver capacity and child well-being.
• 02Community-based networks that connect FFN caregivers to resources without requiring formal licensure.

Supporting FFN caregivers in child care deserts is a high-impact, cost-effective strategy that leverages existing care relationships, stabilizes family employment, and strengthens local economies. Expanding investment in them is a critical next step toward closing Arizona’s child care gaps.