Can UK parents fired by childcare hold the key to growth? | – #parents #fired #childcare #hold #key #growth
CLITHEROE, England, March 8 (Reuters) – Last year two child mother Louise Sharples found herself giving up a new job she knew she’d love because she cares for her young daughter full-time child when he added the cost of his maintenance, it was more than he would earn.
After 12 years working as a charity shop manager, Sharples, 35, took a step back in her career, moving to a part-time but slightly better-paid cleaning job until her children were grown.
Around £800 (963 USA $) child care fee – four days a week for 18-month-old Sunnie child comprehensive for garden and 4-year-old Lola school covering clubs – to him at the end of the year of his salary approx 10Puts 0 pounds. month
“I would like to work more hours,” Sharples told Reuters at the home she shares with her children and web developer husband in northern England. “There is no incentive because it all goes to childcare.
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“I wonder what I’m doing, why I’m working?”
He is not alone. In a survey of 24,000 parents published this month by campaign group Pregnant After Screwed, 76% of mothers who pay for childcare said working no longer made financial sense for them.
The Center for Progressive Policy (CPP) think tank estimates about 1.5 million if custody is granted Britain he predicted that his mother would work longer hours.
While more than 1.1 million jobs are not filled in Britain, Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt is busy labour is trying to persuade older workers to come back from early retirement to ease its market.
Business groups and researchers argue that action on child care in the March 15 budget would do more to unlock greater economic growth.
IT DOESN’T WORK
According to children’s charity Coram, the average annual cost of full-time nursery childcare in England for a child under the age of two was more than £14,000 in 2022.
This makes UK childcare the most expensive in the world, according to the OECD, at around 30% of the income of a couple with two young children.
Only Switzerland and New Zealand rank higher, spending 33% and 35% respectively, while Sweden has just 5%. The OECD average is 12%.
In England, childcare for children up to 5 years of age is mostly provided by private companies. Some government support including funding for 15 free hours per week for 3 and 4 year olds offer does, and those with the lowest incomes are reimbursed up to 85% of their expenses, although they have to pay in advance.
Government to help with childcare costs for the last five years 20 billion says he spends more than £. But providers say the funding doesn’t fully cover the cost of the free hours, leaving many on the brink of financial collapse.
With rising energy and food bills, many have been forced to either increase bills further or close. Education Data from the watchdog Ofsted showed that the number of childminders in England fell by 8% to 5,400 by August 2022.
Lauren Fabianski, head of campaigns and communications at Pregnant Then Screwed, said childcare and early childhood education should be seen as an infrastructure.
“Parents cannot function without quality, affordable child care,” she said. “We need to see the government invest in this to get more women back into the workplace.”
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
The proposals include lowering the age for children to get free hours, increasing the number of weeks in a year they apply for and increasing funding per hour.
While such reforms would cost billions of pounds a year as the government tries to reduce its budget deficit, supporters argue that the investment in childcare is paying off.
The CPP estimates that if 1.5 million mothers who wanted to work more could, that would save at least 9.4 billion the pound will earn additional profits, an economic output of 27 billion will increase by more than £100,000 or around 1% of GDP.
A December report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank and the charity Save the Children estimated that accessible and affordable childcare for all from six months to 11 years of age would save around £8bn a year. addition tax in payments and social in reducing security costs.
“We also know that labour there are longer-term economic benefits to not seeing a loss of talent in our market,” Rachel Statham, associate director of the IPPR and one of the authors of the report, told Reuters.
World Bank data shows Sweden’s female labor force participation rate was nearly 7 percentage points higher than the UK’s in 2019.
Other countries have taken action. Average daily childcare fees in Canada in 2021 10 It announced an investment of 30 billion Canadian dollars over five years to depreciate to the Canadian dollar. he 20 predicts that the real GDP will increase by 1.2 percent during the year.
VOTE FOR THE WINNER?
With elections expected in Britain next year, the opposition Labor Party considers child care a key battleground.
The government is said to be considering reforms but has not announced any plans.
Labor leading the polls in every primary in England school It promised to “transform childcare”, including fully funded breakfast clubs for
“Childcare unlocks the potential not just of children but of parents,” Labor leader Keir Starmer said last month. “Childcare is at the heart of our plans.”
Pregnant Then Screwed, with the promise of the best childcare for 96% of families with children under 3 political found the party to vote for, and Sharples is among them.
“This is my biggest problem,” he said. “If a certain party promised that childcare would be at the forefront of their changes, my ears would be ringing.”
(1 dollars = £0.8306)
Written by Kylie MacLellan; Edited by Catherine Evans
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
2023-03-08 12:22:28
Source – reuters
Translation“24 HOURS”