To wonder why my job is so low paid and feel frustrated by it?

[eggsontoast9]

I’m a nursery nurse and I earn £8.72 an hour (minimum wage for over 25’s, I’m 26).
I’ve been in this job for the last three years and do enjoy it apart from the odd day but I’ve always wondered why it’s so low paid. It’s a hard job. I know a lot of people assume we just sit on our bums all day and play with children but that’s really not the case. I work in the baby unit and we can have anywhere up to 15 babies on a busy day, which in itself is bloody hard work. We have to deal with sick, poo, unhappy/unwell children, difficult parents etc. We have to complete paperwork now, normally whilst looking after the children because we’re short staffed and can’t always have time away from the room. We work long hours not because we want to but because we have to as the wages are so low (I work 7:30-6:00 four days a week and 7:30-5:00 another day). Holidays aren’t very generous. I guess the only bonus is we have weekends off unless we have training. I suppose it’s the same as health care jobs such as care assistants.

I like the job and work with a good team but can’t see myself staying here long term just because of the money which is a shame as it’s really hard to find a job that you enjoy sometimes. I was speaking to my younger cousin who’s 18 and she told me she’s just started a job in Asda earning £9.20 an hour and whilst I’m extremely happy for her and proud of her, it has made me realise my job is incredibly low paid and not very well respected in terms of how hard we all work. Before anyone jumps on me, I’m not saying my cousin shouldn’t earn that amount as I appreciate working in a supermarket is hard work to and any job should be paid a fair wage.

What is more frustrating is that we have to complete training each year and work towards gaining qualifications yet our wages are based on our age, so IMO there isn’t any progression available.

AIBU?

[quote curiouslypacific]@Respectabitch - I work in IT in a technical role for one of the big tech corps you'd definitely have heard of. IME female representation in IT is increasing but it primarily seems to be in semi-technical roles like PMs or account managers rather than out and out engineers.

I don't want to derail into a discussion of why most women aren't interested in IT. I just struggle with the idea that jobs still seem to be so gendered even in this day and age and that women's pay and choices are impacted as a result.

How can those of us in 'male' industries open the door to more women and start to balance out this situation?[/quote]
@curiouslypacific I've been asking this question for work myself. We desperately need more people in data, AI and certain tech areas in my work. I'm currently re/dual-skilling in data science which has got me involved with our Women in Tech group and I truly don't know why more women don't take up these opportunities. There are so many interesting, challenging, well paid jobs in tech that are positively crying out for talent, and they are not that difficult to learn to do. And there are so many routes now.

Whatever you do, OP, don’t take the advice of the person a few comments up to open your own nursery.

I own a nursery. It’s not like running a shop or a small office, where you might have two staff. In a nursery, you need several staff - 3 staff to work with 12 x 2 year olds, for example, plus an extra person to cover lunch breaks. The income for those 2 year olds might be £12,000 a month, but once you have paid salaries plus on costs (employer’s NI and pension contributions) for 4 members of staff and a manager and overheads, there is nothing left.

For everyone you thinks the nursery owner is raking it in, you are having a laugh. In London, the average cost of rent for a nursery is in the region of £50,000 a year plus £18,000 in business rates - and that would be in a cheap area.

Why is this so? Because the government subsidises childcare fees for parents while failing to pay nurseries the going rate for childcare. No one wants to pay the going rate - not the government and certainly not the parents, so most nurseries are on the brink of collapse. Mine certainly doesn’t make any money and it’s full.

Staff are poorly paid because nurseries have to employ a lot of them and the money doesn’t stretch to paying them any more than the minimum. The only way to pay staff more would be to massively increase childcare costs, which no one would ever vote for.

It’s very kind of you to explain basic maths to a finance director! Being serious for a moment, are you saying that you don’t think that you should pay higher nursery fees but that everyone should pay more tax to subsidise the salaries of childcare workers? How much more tax are you personally prepared to pay?

It’s clear that you think your job confers some particular insight into this issue that other people on this thread don’t have. You also have a remarkable amount of time to spend on MN in the middle of the working day for a finance director, but that’s by the by.

No one finds it hard to understand that better wages for nursery workers need to be subsidised, and that the money largely needs to come from government subsidy (ie taxation) or parental pockets. That really isn’t very hard to understand. But repeatedly asking people how much more tax or fees they are prepared to pay, then sneering at what they say they can pay, is simplistic, not insightful - and missing the point.

The starting point is to compare the UK to other countries. Let’s be clear. Subsided, affordable early years childcare is not some wild, radical notion. In fact, it’s the UK that is a relative outlier on the issue. It has some of the most expensive childcare in the developed world versus some of the most poorly paid childcare workers. The UK spend on early years care significantly less than the OECD average. It is one of only two OECD countries where more than 50% of the costs of early years childcare is borne by parents. And we were, pre-pandemic, the sixth largest economy in the world.

Having established that the UK is to some extent an outlier among economies of an equivalent size, the next step is to look at what other countries do. A very common system around the EU is for childcare costs to be linked to parental income. So richer people pay more, and poorer people pay less. I know right? Mind. Blown.

And yes, I would pay more tax and/or higher fees. Meaningless question, but yes I would. However, in terms of fees, my nursery bill is £1600 a month for one child. It would take a very significant rise in my fees to be able to make a significant difference to the workers’ pay, and it would probably make the difference between using the nursery and not using the nursery for me and many parents.

It's the same for a lot of jobs though. I have to have a lot of knowledge for my job, deal with terminally ill people and bereaved people yet my 19 year old son earns as much per hour cleaning at his old school. I know this is also an important job but it does grate.

You're not being unreasonable at all. I once considered being a support worker for adults and that was very low paid for a lot of responsibility so I ended up working in a supermarket!
It is very unfair that you are so poorly paid when you've had to study for qualifications. Maybe look at a nursery attached to a college, they will pay much better.

Forgot to add, your job is very demanding with a lot of responsibility.

@EYProvider

Great to read views from the employer side.

I have no idea about misogyny/low pay but one thing's for sure and that parents always want cheap childcare. It's one of those paradoxical things IMO. If you parent full time yourself, it's one of the most valuable things. If someone else does it for you, it's too expensive.

Personally I feel the gap has to be closed as I can't imagine how difficult it is to look after other people's children. It should be expensive, really expensive, so you get what you should financially. The government should then subsidise the cost for certain parents.

I worked in nurseries for 10 years and couldn't handle the long hours and so little pay. It's really sad as it's not an easy job.

In my child's nursery the staff turn around is crazy I hate it. If they paid them a bit better they are more likely to stay

Could you go into nannying, isn’t that a bit better paid. Yes it is undervalued OP.

I couldn't agree more. dD has just started nursery and she is thriving (even though she had some extreme SA before she went) and I am so grateful to her key worker because she loves her. She cares for my baby in my absence, cleans her and changes her nappies and comforts her when she cries, and I absolutely don't think she is paid enough for that.

YANBU - you should be paid as a teacher frankly.

Have you asked for more money OP?

If you don't ask you don't get!!

Oh, @madroid, you know how that conversation would go, yeah?

"Can I have a pay rise?"
"No"

Nursery nurses, like care staff, are treated as completely replaceable - no matter how qualified they may be, or what experience they may have.

I work in an organisation where the staff turnover is huge, because of this attitude of management. They expect care staff to upskill constantly, but they don't value them appropriately. At least our care staff can move into the NHS with their skills, and get decent pay. Nursery nurses can't.

There are also staff I work with who are hugely skilled and have crap pay - and yes, it is institutionalised misogyny

Pay is generally related to the skills and training and experience required to do the role.

Yes it’s tough, and not everyone has the right personality to do it.

However, those that do can get trained and a job for minimal expense and in a short period of time. On top of that there isn’t really a requirement to keep learning and furthering yourself and 20 years experience doesn’t really make any difference over 20 days.

Probably sounds harsh, but is try when compared to architecture, legal, it, and hundreds of other careers

@winterchills - The nursery owners can’t pay the staff more because the money simply isn’t there for them to do so.

Nearly all parents now - millionaires included - expect childcare to be ‘free’. They’ve been told they should expect it and they do. They resent paying a penny, and they turn nasty when you ask them to do so.

I have owned nurseries for 20 years and I have never struggled so much since childcare incentives for parents were introduced. It’s not just that the government pays an hourly rate that is ridiculously low and the parents are told that nurseries are not allowed to charge ‘top ups’, it’s that parents refuse to pay for extras. They will do exactly 15 hours (as they are entitled to do) and refuse to contribute a penny, even though the government pay peanuts for the 15 hours.

They will leave without giving notice because a nursery nearer to where they live suddenly has a space. The government will let them do this because ‘it’s their choice’, and because they don’t pay, there is no financial incentive for them not to break their contract (you can’t charge deposits for funded places).

Parents see it from the point of view of parents, and they want free childcare - which I can understand because who doesn’t want free things?

But frankly, it’s not just the nursery workers who are on a low wage. The nursery owners are working for nothing.

@Canyousewcushions

Having had a look, it would cost about £90 per year per tax payer to 'give' £10k to each worker in nurseries in the UK. And given that they'd then paying tax and NI on that, the actual cost would be lower but I can't be bothered to work that one out.

Spread over the population, most of the funds needed could be raised though small tax increases for people on sensible salaries. For a policy which would then give more people the choice to get back to work and reduce the number of people pushed onto benefited etc, I think that's not bad.

As others have pointed out, the UK is the outlier in well off countries in not providing much assistance.

But if you increase the salary for low skilled jobs, then you have to increase the pay for skilled jobs where people have sacrificed years of their lives and paid money (usually by going in to debt) to maintain a meaningful differential.

If you don’t why would anyone aim for the more skilled positions? There has to be an obvious reward.

How do we pay for that?

It is a low paid job. Work seen as “women’s work” and/or caring always is poorly paid. It is not right or fair, but the patriarchal system is institutionally discriminatory to women in terms of status and pay

This with bloody bells on!

I have to say it pisses me off when people here moan about "expensive nursery fees". You're paying half the minimum wage per hour to have your child looked after WTF do you think it should cost they're advocating for wonderful people like you OP to be paid less and have fewer career opportunities

@GlummyMcGlummerson

It is a low paid job. Work seen as “women’s work” and/or caring always is poorly paid. It is not right or fair, but the patriarchal system is institutionally discriminatory to women in terms of status and pay

This with bloody bells on!

I have to say it pisses me off when people here moan about "expensive nursery fees". You're paying half the minimum wage per hour to have your child looked after WTF do you think it should cost they're advocating for wonderful people like you OP to be paid less and have fewer career opportunities

Give over. It’s nothing to do with being “woman’s work”. It’s a low skilled low paid job.

Same as a refuse collector, supermarket cashier, junior call centre employee....

Nothing at all to do with men or women.

It’s everything to women care jobs are seen as women’s work and that is reflected in the pay and status

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee

It’s everything to women care jobs are seen as women’s work and that is reflected in the pay and status

What on earth are you basing that on?

Is being a bin man, sorry refuse collector, seen as men’s work? Is that why they are also low paid?

Unfortunately, and whilst it doesn’t seem right, jobs are generally paid depending on the following:

• how difficult person is to replace in said job
• scarcity of particular skill for job

As much as many jobs are physically exhausting and bloody hard work, they are probably fairly easy to replace compared with other jobs where you may look and think ‘how do you get paid to that much to spend all day on Zoom??’

So, to my point above, you say you are required to train and work towards qualifications but is someone able to step into that job relatively easily and learn on the job, at that salary? Not being rude at all as I do think so many jobs are such hard work but often don’t need someone to have spent multiple years doing qualifications, you just need to have motivation and natural aptitude for it.

It’s a low skilled low paid job.

You think looking after children isn't a skill?

Same as a refuse collector, supermarket cashier, junior call centre employee

Oh yes because looking after courgettes and toilet roll is the same as looking after a human

Nothing at all to do with men or women

Let me ask you - do you think it's a coincidence that jobs traditionally taken up by women - nursery nurse, care home worker, personal carer - are low paid and jobs taken up by men - joiner, bricklayer, electrician - are obscenely well paid? Don't you think something is amiss when looking after human beings is considered so lowly? Have a little think about why, then re-evaluate what you've just said to me.

I think childminders can earn far more, I would take your training and set up on your own.

@Gretnacastle

If it’s low skilled work by default, why is that over 50% of preschool staff in Sweden have university degrees? (ranked as the highest quality early childhood education provision among OECD countries)

Could it simply be that different countries place a different premium on the quality of early years care?

@GlummyMcGlummerson

It’s a low skilled low paid job.

You think looking after children isn't a skill?

Same as a refuse collector, supermarket cashier, junior call centre employee

Oh yes because looking after courgettes and toilet roll is the same as looking after a human

Nothing at all to do with men or women

Let me ask you - do you think it's a coincidence that jobs traditionally taken up by women - nursery nurse, care home worker, personal carer - are low paid and jobs taken up by men - joiner, bricklayer, electrician - are obscenely well paid? Don't you think something is amiss when looking after human beings is considered so lowly? Have a little think about why, then re-evaluate what you've just said to me.

Let’s take one of your examples - electrician

Years of apprenticeship/college. Regular re certifications that they have to pay for.

Liability insurance. A fortune on tools. A van etc etc.

Yes the hourly rate is higher, but you understand that’s not all profit right?

Not really the same a someone who works for a nursery is it?

Plus, and woman who wants to can be a spark. Same as a man can work in a nursery.

Men and women in both roles would be paid the same