To ask if you work full or part time and the reasons why?

[BabyNextYear25]

My sister received news today she would not be able to return to work full time as there isn't capacity. She was a little annoyed as her youngest will be in school and she's bored at home.
It got me thinking, the vast majority of my female friends and family work part time. It would be my dream to work part time but it's not feasible at the moment. Um curious to see how many women work part time, and what is there reason behind it? But also full time as well.
My reason is simple- I was single parent and I couldn't pay my mortgage on one wage.

Full time and a second job.

DD started uni last year…lost tax credits, child benefits and maintenance plus all the cost of living increases.

Looking at upping the hours in the second job as soon as possible.

Part time, dropped to 28 hrs for school runs and stayed that way after it was no longer needed. I'm now mostly WFH though and I make up most of the difference on flexitime.

I won’t be raising DD’s kids if she has any- I’ll be almost 63 when she is 21 so likely to be in my 70’s or older before she has any. Just like my parents were 70 when she was born.

I’ve done part time at 0.8 since eldest was born. Now youngest is in school I’ve just upped to full time. Did it for career rather than money, I was offered a promotion and significant pay rise but it was conditional on upping hours to full time.

The other benefit is DC have been asking to do an expensive, time consuming hobby which would have taken a big hit to our disposable income but is now affordable.

I was planning on getting a cleaner but honestly the house has been much easier to manage with the DC spending less time at home and more in after school childcare and hobbies.

I work 4 days a week term time only. I like having a day off in the week to get things done around the house, catch up with a friend for coffee.

I did work 5 days a week term time only, had a half an hour commute though so couldn’t take or pick my son from school throughout the time he was in reception. I hated it, so I moved back to my old job which is a 7 minute commute to be able to pick him up and those were the hours available.

Omg yes! We can barely manage childcare now and it’s only getting worse. Full time nursery for my son is 80% of my salary. I want to work and the agreement was when I went back after mat leave, as long as nursery was equal to or less than my salary then I’d go back (because if it was equal to it then we were losing that income either way, whether I worked and spent it all on nursery or didn’t work and so didn’t earn it). we signed DS up for nursery when I was 20 weeks pregnant. Since then the fees have increased by 20% and they’re keeping on going up. We looked at moving him but all nurseries in the area were similar prices. And not surprisingly childminders were booked up with huge waiting lists. I don’t know how my sons generation will cope. Currently our parents are kindly helping us out with his nursery fees until he gets funded hours. But even that won’t be a huge game changer. Our family all live 2-3 hours away so they can’t help with the actual childcare. I can totally see us having to do this for our children.

I work part time. I have four children and always worked part time around them to be able to fit around my daughters gymnastics schedule. My husband worked full time and it worked for us. In 2020 my husband had an affair and left the family home. I still work part time now as with universal credit, I am Ok financially working part time & still don’t need to worry about paying for childcare. I will look to move into full time work as my youngest child gets to the end of primary school

Part time. I need the full time money but I don't have the right configuration of care and flexibility.

Interest post about pensions and retirement because I will have to keep working. I won't be able to watch anyone else's kids and I'll be working to keep a roof over my own head.

I know it's horrible and selfish but I worry about this too. I'm only 30, had DC young and decided after the first to go ahead and build my family, finished having DC by 26 and am now studying and focusing on my career.

I'm worried that my DC will be having DC when I'm in my 40's/50's and hoping to be peaking in my career and actually managing to buy a house ( I rent as is typical for my generation). I purposely wanted that part of my life to spend with my partner and be financially secure and I can imagine it still being an absolute graft, fitting work around my DGC instead of DC.

Are you me?
Exactly this.

I do a mix of condensed hours and reduced hours, though I do top my salary up with part time bar work. I like the flexibility and variety this gives me. My Wednesdays are usually flat out so I think I’d struggle to fit everything I wanted to do into a weekend if I had to change now.

There's no law saying you have to provide care for grandchildren. You might not even have any! My only child says he doesn't want children, although he's only 16 so of course may change his mind.

I think if a generation are thinking of relying on their parents for childcare they will be getting a shock, no one should be going into parenthood with that assumption

@Pssspsss even if my DC have children when they are aged 40 themselves, I will still only be 61 and unlikely to have retired by then.

Lots of people will still be working when they become grandparents.

And even if I am retired, I would have no intention of doing any sort of long term childcare.

I think the most I would be able to offer is to take a week or two off work in school half terms and summer holidays and have school aged DGC stay with me whilst their parents worked.

Full time since I was 17 (33 now with 3 kids). Reason = money! I’m in a well paid role and my husband is semi paid well (I earn more though). We don’t have a lavish life, but we also have ZERO help - financial or childcare or anything in between. So working has always been necessary to sustain a decent life for us.

My job is very flexible. I worked 3 days a week but got offered promotion to a different role where they'd anticipated a full time person, so I agreed to take it on, then I got another promotion and I guess I got used to the money, although technically my manager would facilitate me going back to P/T now if I wanted. I'm torn because I like having a but of extra money to play with but I miss the time with my daughter. Now she gets 30 hrs funding I wouldn't save money on childcare either.

I hope my daughter always knows she can rely on me for anything. I won't stop being a mother when she turns 18.

As long as you're there when she needs you and she can talk to you, she'll know that whether you're FT or PT. My mum was a SAHM when I was younger, then PT, then FT and even in my late 30s she's still who I call. Working hours have nothing to do with how good a parent you are. Just wanted to let you know that x

I hope to be able to offer regular childcare when my DC have kids. If they have kids in their early to mid 30s, I'll be in my 60s when grandchildren are born, which might be good timing - old enough to be able to retire, hopefully young enough to still be healthy and active. I'd love to look after grandchildren on a regular basis (if that's what my DC want!).

Can't believe the responses this thread has got, but I think the real answer is we are all just trying to find that balance between time and money! Not an easy task so well done to everyone keeping those balls in the air!!

I'll be burnt out from my job by 60 if not sooner so the dream is to retire early, if I have grandkids would love to put time and energy into looking after them, if not I will hopefully find a less stressful job to keep me busy.

Yes, I work full time, but I was responding re the issue of grandparents providing childcare. I intend to be "the village" for my daughter as much as I can and I will always take care of her babies whenever I can.

I work full time (40 hours per week) in a hybrid job where I am in office 1-2 times a week but they are flexible if I need to be at home more during holidays etc.

I simply couldn't afford to go part time as I am a single parent household and currently on c.40k a year. I wouldnt be able to afford my car, house, holidays among other things if I reduced my hours.

I work FT but work the hours over 4 days (flexible working request)

Personally I don’t think it would be so awful. I actually thought it was becoming more common for grandparents becoming more involved in childcare..

i was literally just observing that many ppl say they are working FT for pensions so they can have an active retirement and wanted to just ask that do people not think that with the the way things are that perhaps maybe their retirement may actually be different from what they envisioned. Certainly I know that if my child needed support with childcare and I was in a position too then I would help. I certainly wouldn’t want her salary to be eaten up by extortionate childcare fees

but judging by the some of the responses I’ve had perhaps I worded it badly 😂

Sorry I should also say I don’t also mean to imply that ppl that don’t want to provide childcare for grandkids are wrong either.

i just wondered generally if ppl were envisioning a different kind of retirement