North Dakota comes in at 49 out of 50 states in total number of residents. With 639,725 residents, North Dakota accounts for not even one quarter of a percent of the nation’s population. Similarly, the less than one hundred thousand residents under the age of eleven don’t even account for two tenths of the nation’s population. In the same way, when looking at the number of children under the age of six potentially needing child care, North Dakota’s residents account for again two tenths of a percent of the nationwide total.
Although only two tenths of the nation is represented in North Dakota, the state doesn’t even have its fair share of two tenths of a percent of the nation’s child care centers. In fact, with only 139 child care centers in the state, North Dakota has barely one percent of the child care centers in the nation. On the other hand, what North Dakota lacks in child care centers, it makes up for in family child care homes. North Dakota has almost ten times as many family child care homes than child care centers. The 1,236 family child care homes account for almost three tenths of a percent of the nation’s total.
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North Dakota’s requested child care differs from the rest nation. North Dakotans request significantly more care for infants and toddlers. Two thirds of the requests for child care in North Dakota are allocated to infant and toddler care. In the rest of the country, less than half of the requests are in this same category. By the time the children preschool-aged, the difference has already swung in the opposite direction. North Dakota’s request rate for preschool-age care eleven points lower than the nation’s total. School-age requests in the state are fifteen percentage points lower than the rest of the nation.
While there’s a difference in where the requests for child care are allocated in North Dakota, many of the prices for child care are somewhere in the middle range of the nation’s average. The two thirds of parents requesting infant and toddler care should expect to pay around $7,500 annually for full-time care at a center and just over $6,000 in a family child care home for the same full-time care.
Although North Dakota doesn’t seem to have its share of options for parents looking for child care, North Dakota is home to beautiful state parks and national wildlife refuges that trying to make up for it.
