According to recent data, 938,200 children are regularly attending licensed or regulated child care services across Canada (not including the Territories). That is about 42% of Canada’s children 0-5 years of age who used licensed child care as their main care arrangement in 2023. A much smaller proportion of these young children (6.8% and 7.4%) respectively) are using unlicensed child care provided by a non-relative or care by a relative as their main arrangement.
The data comes from Statistics Canada ‘s Canadian Survey of Early Learning and Child Care, which collected data about child care arrangements from nearly 30,000 parents in 2023. The Public User Microdata File gives us the results shown here.
Nearly 44% of children 0-5 (982,910 children) are, for various reasons, not currently in child care. Close to half of these are children whose parents are currently on maternity or parental leave or are 4 or 5 year-old children attending kindergarten, often for a full school day.
Licensed child care is now the dominant type of child care arrangement that parents choose for their children 0-5. Of children using any type of non-parental child care arrangement, 75% use licensed care.
