Daycare centres have become an important component of daily activity for a significant number of persons. An analysis of the spatial distribution of daycare centres and their users in relation to the residential social structure of the Québec Metropolitan Area is conducted with the aim of developing a better understanding of the dynamics of accessibility to this crucial service. Over 100centres offer some 5000places to 25000children of pre-school age. About half of these kindergartens have supplied us with the residential postal codes of their children. Using tools such as factorial analysis and statistical cartography, we perform an analysis of the location, both in the social and the physical space of the city and its suburbs, of the centres and the families which use them. The relative distribution of supply and demand of daycare places is measured as well as the relationship between location and degree of social diversity within daycare centres. Although children of pre-school age tend to reside in distant suburbs, most daycare centres are located in central districts. This apparent imbalance, which is largely explained by the workplaces of parents, may have interesting consequences for older neighbourhoods.