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This article identifies the extent to which fiscal and regulatory action by state governments shapes the formation of sectors—in this case, including the local availability, organizational formalization, and quality of teachers in child care centers nationwide. These state-level effects are compared to the local effects of family demand and associated demographics of households. Although demand factors (e.g., maternal employment, income levels, and ethnic composition of communities) explain a greater share of the variance in the availability and formalization of child care centers, state governments have been effective in spurring organizational growth within low-income communities, advancing formalization and quality in particular. Communities with more civic organizations and churches per capita display a stronger capacity to expand and formalize child care centers. The formation of this sector appears to stem from pluralistic politics, resulting in variable state spending and regulatory actions, not simply from a deterministic advance of rationalized institutions.

AbstractAs welfare‐to‐work reforms increase women's labor market attachment, the lives of their young children are likely to change.
This
note draws on a random‐assignment experiment in Connecticut to ask whether mothers' rising employment levels and program participation
are
associated with changes in young children's early learning and cognitive growth. Children of mothers who entered Connecticut's Jobs First
program, an initiative with strict 21‐month time limits and work incentives, displayed moderate advantages in their early learning, compared
with those in a control group. A number of potential mechanisms for this effect are explored, including maternal employment and income, home
environment, and child care. Mothers in the new welfare program are more likely to be employed, have higher income, are less likely to be married,
have
more children's books in their home, and take their children to libraries and museums more frequently. However, these effects explain little of
the observed gain in child outcomes. Other parenting practices and the home's social environment do explain early learning, but these remained
unaffected by welfare reform. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management