Big Daycare: The Impact of Private Equity-Owned Child Care Businesses on the Market for Early Care and Education

Grant description:

This project aims to fill the gap on the impact that private-equity-owned child care businesses have on the structure and functioning of the early child care market. The author seeks to answer the following questions: How does private equity affect the market for early career and education? In particular, how different are private-equity-backed child care centers from other child care centers? How do centers change when taken over by a private equity firm? How does the entrance of a private-equity-backed center impact other private and public providers? This research is poised to fill a large void in the child care literature: the role of for-profit providers and, in particular, the effects of new entrants and private-equity-owned operations into child care markets.