It's been a year since 15,000 mums and families marched through 11 UK cities to protest the prohibitive cost of childcare. In those 12 months, it's safe to say that, sadly, little has changed. Last month, immigration minister Robert Jenrick said that the government should “encourage more families to have children” in the UK, to fund and care for the ageing population (echoing the sentiments of an anonymous Tory politician, who spoke to The Sun newspaper around the same time as the 2022 protests). And yet, despite these calls for more births, it was announced that one in 10 mothers are having to quit their jobs due to childcare pressures – with almost half of parents unable to afford having any more children.
That’s right; while parents have been screaming and shouting for over a year that they can’t afford childcare for the children they do have (never mind ones they hoped to have in the future), government officials are responding that it’s our responsibility to have more children for the good of society.
We now know there is a drop in our population on our horizon, with the United Nations predicting it coming in the 2080s. Given the litany of environmental issues we’re currently facing, you’d be forgiven for feeling like this could be just what we need. Less cars on the road, less food wastage, less of all the things that are damaging our world and our ways of life. But with others arguing that our current societal and economic model of living hinges on balance, and a need for working young people to support retired older people, this is clearly not a problem with an easy fix.
But what about those in the middle; parents and families, those at these marches and those cheering them on from home? New research from the Fawcett Society found that a tenth of mothers have had to leave the workforce to take care of children due to rapidly rising childcare costs. Meanwhile, a study by Pregnant Then Screwed, the charity behind the 2022 marches, found that this increased to one in five parents leaving the workforce for households earning up to £50k per year, while that three-quarters of parents have reduced their working hours to cater for childcare costs.
Another study saw 84% of respondents admit that childcare costs create financial anxiety in the home, with 76% of women asked who do not have children sharing that childcare costs are either a factor in why they don’t have children or it is the main reason they don’t have children. The charity's latest find? That 42% of parents cannot afford to have any more children as a result.
“My biggest concern is keeping my daughter warm in the winter.”
My husband and I had our first child late last summer, and we can't afford to put her in nursery; our local one costs £58 a day, or £1,100 a month. It doesn’t make sense for one of us to work and then direct all of our earnings to someone else taking care of her, so instead, we each work three days a week and look after her three days a week (on Sundays we have a much-loved day all together).
But those nursery fees are on the lower end of the spectrum, thanks in part to the fact that we live in the north. One friend who lives down south pays a day rate a few pence shy of £80. Bearing in mind that the National Minimum Wage currently stands at £10.42 per hour for those 23 and over, it means that a parent working the average eight-hour shift on minimum wage would just make enough to match the day's childcare fees . After deducting tax, pension, national insurance and travel costs… not only have they not made a profit, they’re in debt. And that’s just for one child. God forbid the parent is 20 or under; then they can be legally paid just £7.49 an hour, or £5.28 if they’re under 18.
According to Pregnant Then Screwed, the UK has one of the most expensive childcare systems in the world, with costs continuing to rise: 41% of parents have had an increase of 5-10% in their childcare fees, while 14% say theirs have risen by more than 10% in the last 10 months. The inaffordability is clear to see.
Ella Delancey Jones, 31, is the host of You, Still, a podcast exploring postpartum identity. She’s a friend (our daughters were born exactly two months apart), and tells me: “The financial implications of having a second child one day are the number one reason we’re put off. We can comfortably afford our daughter with me doing the bulk of the childcare, but even with her doing just one day a week at nursery we don’t know how it will be feasible to add another baby to the mix.
A traditional five-day week just causes resentment and procrastination.
“Even if we waited until my daughter was of school age,, doing so would impact my career again for several years,” Ella adds. “It’s so unfair that our choice of whether to add to our family or not is being dictated by a government who refuses to invest in the future leaders of our country.”
To those who suggest it's her responsibility to breed for the sake of the economy, she says: “If we are to have more babies to support our ageing population and retirees, we need much more give and take – not just take. I don't want to hear ‘why should I pay for your child?’ if you want them to pay for your pension. We need those in charge to put value on those who are going to keep things running, and those who are raising them, and stop ignoring us until everything falls apart. Because it won't be our children’s fault.”
Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, is not coy with the truth. She tells me: “We’ve got women terminating pregnancies and thousands more deciding not to have children. Women falling out of the workforce in droves; and children being pushed into poverty. All because of an unaffordable, inaccessible, dysfunctional childcare sector that has been neglected for the past decade by this Government.
“The Autumn Statement saw the national living wage increased, which is great in theory,” she added, “but funding for nurseries was not increased alongside this announcement. More women will drop out of the workforce and fewer will be able to afford to have kids as a result.”
For myself, Ella and many more mothers and families, further children are not something we can afford at the moment. Whether this government will acknowledge that we need a functioning, well-considered solution is yet to be seen. I’m not optimistic.
