What Do We Know about Building and Sustaining the Child Care and Early Education Workforce? Cross-Cutting Themes from a Literature Review, Environmental Scan, and Data Scan. BASE Knowledge Review Series. OPRE Report 2023-242

High-quality, stable child care and early education (CCEE) can have lasting, positive impacts on children. However, there are ongoing challenges in recruiting, supporting, and retaining a qualified, stable CCEE workforce that provides high-quality care. CCEE educators typically have low levels of compensation; limited opportunities for education, training, and professional development; inconsistent working conditions; and high levels of stress and burnout. There are also high rates of job turnover, which can diminish the quality of care by straining remaining educators. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these issues. While several states and localities are taking steps to build and stabilize their CCEE workforce, important questions remain about how to best strengthen the workforce to meet the needs of children and families, particularly those who experience poverty or who are racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse. The "Building and Sustaining the Child Care and Early Education Workforce" (BASE) project team completed a literature review and an environmental scan that were designed to identify and document existing knowledge about the CCEE workforce and develop strategies to strengthen it. The literature review synthesized research on factors that shape CCEE workforce dynamics, defined here as how educators enter, advance in, and exit out of different roles, settings, and types of care. The literature review predominantly focused on studies conducted between 2017 and 2021 and examined the effectiveness of strategies that were implemented to build a sustained, qualified workforce. The environmental scan identified and reviewed the range of strategies currently being used across the country to build, advance, and sustain the CCEE workforce. The team also completed a data scan that assessed the strengths and weaknesses of several potential data sources that could be used to examine workforce dynamics and address key gaps in existing research.