Licensing status for child care businesses, Canada, 2022

Target population The target population for this survey includes all child care locations in Canada with an annual revenue of at least $2,500 per year. To identify these units, the sampling frame was built by taking locations coded to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 624410 (Child day-care services) on the Business Register in addition to providers matched from licensed provincial and territorial lists, whose primary activity may not fall under NAICS 624410. All units with revenue less than $2,500 were excluded from the frame.

Instrument design The questionnaire was developed by Statistics Canada in partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). Statistics Canada conducted cognitive testing with selected respondents and made recommendations that were implemented to finalize the questionnaire. Data will be collected electronically.

Sampling This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

The sampling frame is extracted from Statistics Canada's Business Register (BR). The sampling unit is the location, as defined in the Business Register.

Sampling unit The sampling units are all home-based licensed, home-based unlicensed and centre-based child care locations in Canada.

Stratification method Units were stratified into three groups: Centres, Licensed Homes and Unlicensed Homes. These three strata were further stratified into eleven regions, consisting of the ten provinces and the territories combined into one region.

Centres on the frame that were identified as having a particularly large number of employees on the Business Register formed their own stratum where all locations within it were selected in the sample with certainty.

Sampling and sub-sampling The total sample size was set at 20,000 units, and units were allocated to ensure similar quality across regions and balance among the estimation domains. The total sample is allocated at the strata level in order to meet the required precision when estimating proportions for the three types of services at the provincial level.