To think new childcare costs screw women?

[idontknow54789]

Before getting pregnant with DC2 day rates at nurseries around here were £70-80 a day. Now DC2 is here they’ve gone up to £120 a day! My DH earns over £100k so we don’t get free childcare. It’s now looking like it’s not worth me going back to work - it’s going to cost us for me to work. I know we’re fortunate that he has a decent salary (this is London though so doesn’t go far). All nurseries are saying it’s the lack of funding for the ‘free’ hours that are forcing them to put up costs so much in a year. So the lower earner (I know not always women but often are for many many reasons) gets screwed and it disincentives them to work. I feel so deflated over this. I’ve got my hard hat on here as I know a lot will say how privileged we are he earns that but this is more of a rant about my personal situation and career and others in my position.

I think it’s pretty obvious from the prior discussion.

OP I dont want to snarl at you here but your husband is a perfect example of why women earn less - he is simply unwilling to adjust his work to suit his child. You have to.

From his 100k, how much will you get from that given you're making yourself less employable (for many reasons) and reducing your full time pension contributions and acting as the permanently on-call, unreliable female stereotype who has to be the one taking time off work for the kids coughs and colds?

He needs to pay at least 50% of the nursery costs. I hate it so much when married women trot out that it's not worth them working due to childcare fees - it's both of your baby, it's both of your cost. Just because the bill might equal your salary, it doesn't mean you are paying your whole salary to work.

Away from your instance, it'll be interesting to see if things change in the future because for the first time, young women are out-earning men (latest pay gap report)

Yes, and it's never men saying that it's not worth them going back to work as childcare costs their salary, even if it does @littlemousebigcheese

Just to be clear my husband cannot work part time - his role doesn’t allow it. He also equally takes time off when children are ill and his job is more flexible than mine. And all costs are joint obviously- just like all our household costs.

This is more making the point that we would be financially better off as a family if I didn’t work.

Many roles say they don't work part time. Until they have to.
When I came back from mat leave I asked to return on 3 days. My boss said 'sorry that won't work for us'. My response was 'that's fine, you will have my resignation letter tomorrow'. Suddenly it was doable when the choice was me for 3 days or not at all. If you have a in demand skill, and really good at your job, it gives leverage.

I agree.

dh’s job was not flexible initially. He’s office based and can wfh if needed.

he told them he needed to be flexible around my job, and reduce to 4 days a week.

they said no. He said fine then, I’ll go somewhere I can. They said hang on, perhaps we can work something out.

in the last 10 years his workplace has gone from mainly men with sahm wives picking up the slack to a much more flexible environment. They realised PT workers helped the business, allowing school runs etc meant they employ more women. Even though the job hasn’t changed.

Will you be better off long term though?

once the kids are out of nursery, and you have lost your foot on the career ladder, have years of pension contributions to catch up on, what then?

what we did was changed the mortgage to interest only while the kids were in nursery. Then once they were in school we had spare cash to to start repayments again. I was on a higher pay band- it meant I didn’t miss increments or promotion opportunities.

a colleague had a baby at the same time as me and gave up work for the reasons you give- “salary doesn’t cover childcare” etc. she couldn’t get back into her job as after 5 years her skills were all outdated, and she kept losing out to other applicants who hadn’t been out the workplace. She ended up taking an entry level job and working her way back up again. She still isn’t back to where she was when she left.

This is really good to hear. DH works in a very male dominated role and it’s really pisses me off that they won’t let him go down to 4 days. I wish more companies were like the ones you mention.

You are right. I’ve had time to work things out after my initial rant and will be going back. Work should pay though, which in my case it isn't. I consider my salary fairly decent and I just think the lower earner shouldn’t get penalised for having a higher earning partner.

And just to be clear, I know we are fortunate and can afford the childcare. This wasn’t the point of the post though. The point is is that as a family we are worse off by both parents working- this really should never be the case to incentivise work.

to compare though when my kids were little there were no free childcare places. I paid full time from 6m to when they went to school. And I earned nowhere near 100k.

so this whole argument seems alien to me.

Paid holiday NI pension payments add them all.up .
Yeh maybe your net income is lower for few years
But it s a long game

I don't understand why you say this

the lower earner shouldn’t get penalised for having a higher earning partner.

No one is penalising you
Your family income will be x
Childcare is y
Net income is z
Children cost money
On top you both paying into pensions

How many children is that for?

Probably just the 1.

£2k+ per child isn't unusual now.

That’s for 2 kids 4 days a week

Slightly different figures but similar here. Our day rate has doubled in 3 years. I currently only eat one meal a day to avoid more debt.

Same to a point, mine were slightly subsidised from 3 years and I earnt about 40k at that point. But I still absolutely get where OP is coming from, it's ridiculous that higher earners, paying much more into the system, are discriminated against. As 'reward' for doing well, my DH had to pay back pretty much all our child benefit last year. As a country to we need these higher earners to help pay the salaries of public sector workers, if we keep going the way we are, many of these will chose to move abroad and then we will all be worse off.

Totally and that's what's wrong with the whole system. It penalises people who do well.

I have to laugh at the suggestion someone on £100k could go part-time. The chances are someone on £100k is doing well over their contracted hours. Possibly travelling, managing others and in quite a stressful job, the chances of them being allowed to go part-time is remote (unless they are a surgeon and just do less operations)

I agree, I think it’s subsidising the free hours plus NI. Our nursery fees went up £300 a month per child in April due to this with no notice, so it is now £4500 a month for two. Add on £300 to travel to London on the train, and that is pretty much the whole of a £100k salary after tax and student loan.

So basically a huge amount of stress, juggling who has what meetings and drop offs and pick ups, compulsory business travel for both jobs. For no actual financial benefit right now except to keep the job open.

We have both requested part time but been declined. Our contracts state our hours plus any overtime needed to hit targets, so saying go part time doesn’t always help

Right? Employers are often getting their pound of flesh, it’s not easy to go part time. It is very easy for them to find a business reason to decline a flexible working request. I also couldn’t get a request through to work from home one extra day a week, which would have had no impact on the business.

Debating now if we have a third and if we do, whether to just give up work. I currently pay well over £70k a year tax. So many of my friends salary sacrifice into a pension, as they also can’t go part time, so reduce their salary that way. They pay huge amounts of tax so I don’t think it’s anywhere near the same as a PP who mentioned it’s as bad as people at the universal credit cut off refusing to work more. They’re net contributors, paying in way in excess of what they take

It’s not your salary, it’s both your salaries. Ok your net at the end of the month might be the same with or without your salary but you’re also working on your career progression and contributing to your pension and national insurance.

We have a similar issue with two kids under 3. My husband earns just over £100k and we would lose out on £1200 per month childcare costs with funded hours and tax free childcare by him earning about a third of that more than he did before the pay increase. We have upped his pension contributions to bring us under the limit as the extra pension costs are around £600 per month but we save £600 more on top and eventually will get the pension contributions back in a way when he retires. It’s net adjusted income not just income. There is definitely a cut off around £100-125k where it actually makes you worse off than earning £95k if you have young kids. Also London so mortgage on a very modest house is £3k per month and nursery fees (with funded hours!) are £2.5k it doesn’t go as far as people think. I know we’re privileged but its not right that women are being forced out of work if that’s what they want because of an arbitrary level that was set more than 10 years ago.