Nevada's 24-hour child care centers have fallen from 71 to 35 since 2018 as night-shift parents search for help

What happened

The number of Nevada child care providers offering around-the-clock care has dropped nearly in half since 2018, from 71 to 35, according to reporting by The Nevada Independent. The figures come from state licensing reports and current numbers provided by Molly Moser, public information officer for Nevada's Child Care and Development Program and child care licensing office.

Of the 35 sites still offering 24-hour care, 26 are in Southern Nevada and nine are in Northern Nevada. The outlet reported that rural areas, including mining communities such as Elko, have few or no formal overnight options.

Why overnight care matters in Nevada

A state of off-hour workers

A 2021 Urban Institute analysis cited by The Nevada Independent found that about 44 percent of Nevada children under 6 have parents who work nontraditional hours, meaning before 7 a.m. or after 6 p.m. on weekdays, or any time on weekends. That is the second-highest share of any state after Mississippi and well above the national average of 36 percent. The share rises to half of low-income children and 70 percent of children of single parents.

Las Vegas leads large metros

A 2022 analysis found that among the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, Las Vegas had the highest share of workers on these shifts, nearly 10.3 percent, or about 112,000 people. Statewide the figure was 9.5 percent, compared with nearly 6 percent nationally, the outlet reported.

Cost and shortage pressures

The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates 66.1 percent of Nevada children live in an area with a child care shortage. Nevada families who pay for child care spend more than 32 percent of their income on it, the highest of any state, according to a LendingTree analysis cited in the report. Employer help is rare: a report from the Governor's Office of Workforce Innovation found just 5.5 percent of Nevada businesses surveyed in 2023 offered on-site child care, with most citing cost and legal risk.

Why providers are pulling back

Chelsea Sliter, director of family resources at the Reno-based nonprofit Children's Cabinet, told The Nevada Independent that requests for overnight care have grown over the past two to three years as more people move to the area and many hold more than one job. She said many centers are licensed for 24-hour care but do not actually offer it because of costs, staffing shortages and uneven demand. Moser said low enrollment is the main reason centers cut their hours.

Glaiza Giron, who has run 24-hour care from her Northern Nevada home for more than two decades, said state limits on how many children she can take mean she cannot always accept warehouse workers who call her. She told the outlet she can stay awake with children only two nights in a row before her husband, who is also licensed, takes over. Giron charges $65 a day; for families on subsidies, Children's Cabinet covers $40 and parents pay the rest.

Low pay adds to the strain. Nevada child care workers earned an average of $11.92 an hour in 2022, according to the report.

What families do instead

Parents who cannot find licensed overnight care rely on relatives, friends or neighbors, or split shifts between two working parents. Sliter said this can lead to transportation problems, sleep disruption for children and job instability. The Nevada Independent cited research linking nonstandard parental work schedules with behavior problems in children and greater strain on marriages, including a Harvard Shift Project study of nearly 7,000 hourly workers that found 94 percent of married workers with stable schedules were still married nine months later, compared with 82 percent of those with less predictable schedules.

Sliter said closing the gap would take more funding, possibly including higher subsidy reimbursement rates for providers and technical help for those seeking licenses. She added that the Legislature would likely have to approve such changes. More coverage of family and neighborhood issues is in our community section.

What to watch next

• Whether the Legislature takes up funding changes, such as higher subsidy reimbursement rates, that Sliter said would likely require lawmakers' approval.
• Whether the count of licensed 24-hour providers, which The Nevada Independent reported is still declining, continues to fall.