In many countries around the world, the early childhood workforce often experiences poor recognition for their work which translates to lower wages and qualifications, fewer opportunities for career development and inadequate professional development, in comparison with other professionals working to support older children and adults.
The early years workforce in England from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) compares conditions and characteristics of childcare workers with those in occupations that are often regarded as career alternatives.
The report highlights several key findings:
The brief entitled, California’s ECE Workforce: What We Know Now and the Data Deficit That Remains,takes a look at three recent resources centered on the early childhood workforce in California. These include:
1) local workforce data sources from three counties;
2) annual federal data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; and
3) California-specific data drawn from the 2012 National Survey of Early Care and Education
Innovative approaches to continuous professional development (CPD) in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Europe: Findings from a comparative review explores innovation as an aspect of in-service continuous professional development in ECEC.
Early Childhood Care and Education in Five Asian Countries seeks to consolidate early childhood developments in Asia as a basis for The Head Foundations further research and advocacy in this area.
A general overview of the ECCE landscape in the Asia-Pacific region is introduced by this resource. Country profiles are included as a way to share data on individual countries. These country profiles are presented through five aspects:
The Working in Early Care and Education in North Carolina workforce study provides comprehensive data on teachers, assistant teachers and directors in early care and education centers and on the licensed early care and education programs in which they work.
Data is provided from statewide surveys of the workforce from September 2012 through February 2013.
Other workforce studies can be found via the website listed below.
The 2018 Fostering Effective Early Learning (FEEL) study focuses on the importance of quality, and how to strengthen it in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. Extensive research demonstrates that the benefits of ECEC for children are increased when the service provider and educators are highly skilled and participate in professional development (PD), and the service is of high quality.
Early Learning Career Pathways Initiative: Credentialing in the Early Care and Education Field introduces a career pathways framework 4 in use by several federal agencies, provides a national landscape of states’ requirements for ECE staff related to credentialing, highlights five states at various points in the development of ECE career pathways, and shows how early learning system components used in the majority of states align with the Six Key Elements of Career Pathways Framework that other industries use. The elements in this framework are:
Early Childhood Workforce Index 2018 is the second edition of the biennial Early Childhood Workforce Index from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley. This edition continues to track the status of the early childhood education workforce and related state policies in order to understand changes over time. Several new analyses, as well as updated policy indicators and recommendations, have been added.
