Also stepping up to fill the child-care gap are family members.

“Since 1997, the use of organized day care centers and father-provided care have increased, while the proportion of children in nonrelative care in the provider’s home has decreased,” says the Census report.

“We have seen many participate in ‘nanny shares’ with neighbors or other family members,” Fraelich says. “Grandparents are also becoming more involved in the child-care issue.” 

In fact, preschoolers get a lot of help from grandma and grandpa, according to the Census Bureau: 24 percent of them got regular grandparent care in 2011, rising from 21 percent in 1997, the bureau says. Eighteen percent were taken care of by fathers in 2011 as mothers worked.

The study also found a fewer number of latchkey kids. The Census Bureau says that only one kid in seven watched himself regularly while living with a single working parent in 2011. That’s down from about one in four in 1997, or a decline from 7.3 million to 4.2 million kids. The study suggests that the increasing number of after-school programs have played a role in that decline.

A Huge Chunk

Child-care costs eat up a huge chunk of household income. According to a study last year by Child Care Aware of America, center-based child-care fees for babies outpaced annual rent in 22 states and the District of Columbia. Throw in a 4-year-old kid, and the fees outstripped rent in all 50 states. In 20 states and D.C., a family with two kids also paid more in center-based child-care fees than they did for in housing costs if the parents were mortgage holders. In 35 states and D.C., caring for an infant at a child-care center or a family child-care home cost more than a year’s worth of in-state tuition at a four-year college.

Child Care Aware of America’s report is called Parents and the High Cost of Child Care.

“Working parents are caught in a bind—they need child care to continue to work and support their families, but costs keep going up, stretching family budgets to the limit,” said the report.

Again, parents are responding, says the organization, with a patchwork of solutions. “Nearly 30 percent of children under age 5 today are in multiple child-care settings every week,” says the organization.