Child-care industry proves big business

Early childhood education is big business.

That's one of the conclusions in a report released yesterday by the MIT Workplace Center and the Family Initiative of Legal Momentum, a nonprofit child-care advocacy group.

The report, a compilation of data on early childhood education, stems from a 2004 conference at MIT that examined the impact of child care and early education on the US economy and concluded that investments in such services result in payoffs to communities.

''For too long, we have looked at early care and education primarily as a social service and a support for low-income families, but a lot of the research on quality care shows that it is also an economic driver," said Ann Bookman, executive director of the MIT Workplace Center.

Nationwide, the industry employs 900,000 workers as licensed providers and teachers, according to the National Child Care Association. Another 2 million are family, friends, or neighbors who serve as child-care providers. National revenues for direct child care were an estimated $43 billion in 2002, the MIT-Legal Momentum report said.

In Massachusetts, the early childhood education industry, including day care, generated close to $1.5 billion in gross receipts in 2003. In addition, the 12,000 businesses that provided those services employed, on average, 29,555 people. They also served 245,000 children that year, according to data from the California-based National Economic Development and Law Center, which contributed to yesterday's report.

Jen Wohl, senior program manager at the law center, said the child-care industry in Massachusetts rivals industries like wireless telecommunications, data-processing services, and pharmaceutical manufacturing. For example, gross receipts for data-processing services were $1.4 billion in 2003. By contrast, Massachusetts's pharmaceutical firms had gross receipts of $1.54 billion. In all, $671 million in gross receipts were collected by wireless telecommunications firms in the state, said Wohl.

Research cited by the report said when children are enrolled in a good early education program for a significant amount of time their parents benefit, too. The report pointed to data in a study of more than 100 children that found that, over a 21-year period, the children's mothers earned $78,750 more than women whose children did not participate.

''The government's perception is that some industries need continuous funding to keep them competitive, but we are looking at the fact that one industry that is not getting those economic development dollars is early education and child care," Wohl said. ''If no one is watching the children, it doesn't matter how many different jobs are created because people will not be able to work."

The MIT report, released yesterday, concluded the US government should sponsor a study of early childhood education that would track the short- and long-term impact of such services on the economy and families. It also called for new financing for early childhood education through public-private collaborations, and it said child-care teachers' wages should be increased and their education expanded. Child-care teachers and providers are among the lowest-paid wage earners in the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that they earned, on average, $9.50 per hour in 2002, less than the $14.95 average paid other workers at private firms.

US Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said yesterday that she would ask the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on the importance of child care and early education to the US economy.

Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com.