Providing Child Care to Military Families: The Role of the Demand Formula in Defining Need and Informing Policy

The Office of the Secretary of Defense asked the Rand Corporation to assess the Department of Defense (DoD) childcare demand formula as a tool for translating information on military families into measures of potential childcare need and to suggest ways that the tool might be improved. The authors assess the validity of the DoD formula in meeting childcare needs, analyze the factors that influence key childcare outcomes, and address the broader issue of how DoD can refine its goals for military child care.