Why the salary for Childcare job is so poor( sometimes)??

[matro87]

Hello I am forward to build my career in a Childcare environment as I would like to work with children. I am studying for cache level 3 diploma! Work with children is so beautiful, but you have a lot of responsibilities too. I am wondering why the salary in this environment is so poor! Does anyone have an idea?

Good luck here, OP. You’ll get a fair few posts moaning about the expense.

FWIW I was in childcare for two decades and I put it down to being ‘disposable and replaceable’.

I think a lot of it has to do with the work force being predominantly female.

It’s seen as an enjoyable job that doesn’t have extensive or difficult training.
And people are paying for childcare to allow them to work- so it needs to be less than their salary,

Can you become a nanny? That often seems quite well paid for childcare, especially if live in with little or no living expenses.

Because if it is paid better, people won't be able to afford to go back to work at all.

I work in childcare and did my level 3 and often wonder about this myself. I did it because it fitted in with my children (term time only)
Every job I've had seems to be either minimum wage or just above minimum wage. I agree it's a lot of responsibility for the money as you are looking after people's most precious thing in the world (their children)
I left my last job as I was working with people that were level 2 or level 1 and I was level 3 but we were all on the same money.

Predominantly female workforce

Because people don’t want to pay the fees that the childcarers deserve. They want to pay the bare minimum even tho it’s their most precious thing and childcare is bloody hard!!

Because level 3 is not a very high qualification and lots of people have childcare skills and therefore it is easy to replace people (supply of workers is highly flexible) while the customers are very price sensitive (childcare is expensive) so it's hard to pass on any cost increases (wage increases) to the parents without them taking their custom elsewhere (lots of competition in the market in most places).

Sorry, I'm an economics teacher! Short answer: most industries dominated by women have low wages (sexism plus tendency of women to cluster in industries that don't make big/any profits). Retrain as a plumber...

I think childcare workers should be paid more and trained more highly. But that would require higher wages all round so people could afford them. Or more subsidy.

As a childminder I can earn max £9.75 per hour if I'm full. But from that I have to deduct expenses. I have a degree in early years and have never earnt more than £9k a year

It's not always about not wanting to pay the fees that they deserve at all, what a stupid idea. People are so stretched these days, most people come away with barely anything after childcare and bills.

Nurseries have many overheads too, building, heating and lighting, staff wages, pension etc, food for children, insurance, equipment, staff training etc etc. It all adds up for nurseries.

Because people don’t want to pay the fees that the childcarers deserve. They want to pay the bare minimum what crap. Nursery fees aren’t cheap- to put my child in full time any near me would cost nearly half my salary (pre mortgage/ pre bills/ pre travel costs) and quite frankly I’d have to give up work, I would have literally no money left.
Someone needs to explain the sums to me, who’s making the money.

I agree, to start a early years course these days at level three you need to have decent maths and english GCSE, and one person in setting should have a early years degree.

I have both, and have never had a decent wage for the effort put in or the vast responsibility.

For those reasons I make sure my own children never went down the early years route as a career.

There is a chronic shortage of early years students currently, and a high amount of agency workers are in day nurseries, who are not committed due to temp nature of their work, and do not improve the level of care. Mainly due to the fact they can not be left alone with the children, meaning qualified staff cant leave room, which impacts lunch breaks and later hours care in day shift.

Apart from the income, I love the job and enjoy every aspect of work, and the company of children. I have kept in contact and made friends with many parents over the years, so the plus aspects of the job are huge.
But the money aspect is not helpful and am so aware that its only that my partner makes enough money to enable me to carry on working in my chosen field. If that was not the case I would earn more working in a shop or in our area, cleaning houses. Heard recently that cleaners get paid £15 an hour in my area!

This is true of both childcare and caring for the aged. These jobs are really challenging. You need patience, stamina, intelligence and sensitivity yet people are often paid no more than they could get manning a till at tesco. I've often heard parents at the school gate saying that being at work is far less stressful than looking after a couple of preschoolers all day yet this is never recognised in the salary provided.

I don't know what the answer is as it's true that parents having to pay for childcare don't have much left after paying for it. I think the only answer is more government subsidy for childcare. Maybe put up the wage but only ask parents to pay half. Can't see this happening though.