What is the Misalignment Index?
The Misalignment Index is a survey tool that measures access to early care and education (ECE) by directly comparing what families need and prioritize to what their current child care arrangement actually provides.
What does the Misalignment Index measure?
Instead of asking families whether their care meets their overall needs, the Misalignment Index asks about specific features of care that align with the four dimensions of the ECE Access Framework: reasonable effort, affordability, support for children's development, and meeting parents' needs.
Families rate the importance of these features and report whether their current arrangement satisfies them. When a feature that a family marked as essential is absent from their current care arrangement, it’s scored as a misalignment; when their priorities and their arrangement line up, it's scored as alignment. Summing these comparisons across several core constructs produces a single index score for each family, which can then be grouped into low, moderate, or high misalignment categories to reflect how well (or how poorly) their current child care market is serving them.
How can the Misalignment Index be used?
The Misalignment Index can help researchers, policymakers, and early childhood leaders understand where child care options align with families' priorities and where gaps exist. It offers two ways of look at child care access beyond simple counts of available "slots":
- First, the Misalignment Index can provide an overall snapshot of the prevalence of child care misalignment in a state or community.
- Second, it can show which communities and families experience the greatest misalignment, and on which priorities. Two families in the same community can face entirely different barriers, and community context shapes both the supply of care available and the type of care families need. Disaggregating this information by geography or family characteristics helps identify which families are facing the greatest access challenges, and on which aspects of care.
Have questions, or want to use the Misalignment Index?
Contact Sarah Daily sdaily@childtrends.org to learn more about the Misalignment Index and its methodology, or to learn about opportunities to use the tool in your state or community.
Child Trends Misalignment Research
- Child Care Misalignment Among Families With Child Care Scholarships in Maryland (Upcoming)
- Understanding Child Care Access Challenges Requires Family-Centered Solutions
- Understanding Minnesota Families’ Access to Child Care Choices That Align With Their Priorities and Preferences