National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE), 2012

The National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) is a set of four integrated, nationally representative surveys conducted in 2012. These were surveys of (1) households with children under 13, (2) home-based providers (3) center-based providers, and (4) the center-based provider workforce. The National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) documents the nation's current utilization and availability of early care and education (including school-age care), in order to deepen the understanding of the extent to which families' needs and preferences coordinate well with providers' offerings and constraints. The experiences of low-income families are of special interest as they are the focus of a significant component of early care and education/school-age (ECE/SA) public policy. The NSECE calls for nationally-representative samples including interviews in all fifty states and Washington, DC. The study is funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), United States Department of Health and Human Services. The project team is led by NORC at the University of Chicago, in partnership with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago and Child Trends. Additional information about this study can be found on the NSECE Web site. The Quick Tabulation and Public-Use Files are currently available via this site. Restricted-Use Files are also available at three different access levels; to determine which level of file access will best meet your needs, please see the NSECE Data Files Overview for more information. Restricted-Use Files are available via Research Connections. To obtain the Level 1 files, researchers must agree to the terms and conditions of the Restricted Data Use Agreement and complete an application via ICPSR's online Restricted Data Contracting System. Level 2 and 3 Restricted-Use Files are available via the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). For more information, please see the access instructions for NSECE Levels 2/3 Restricted-Use Data.