Why do we get it so bad compared to other countries?

[nosferatu]

I have a lot of friends who live in other countries and I am from former Yugoslavia myself and I can not help but compare the childcare situation. Over there is it fairly subsidised and women don't stay at home because of costs of childcare. When I moved to uk years ago I thought that going to work would be much easier then it is. I couldn't financially justify going to work and I have put my career on hold. But I can't say it was purely out of choice. 1300£ a month (for a not necessarily good nursery but that's another issue) is simply too much for anyone and I feel like we have to be able to afford to go to work. In Germany you can get it for 400£ month France I hear it's the same Scandinavia even less...and so on. (ok cost of living and food is not the same but you get the idea about the proportion of the earnings)

I wonder why the "4th strongest economy" in the world has such a bad deal for women and why doesn't it ever reach an election debate.
Do you share the same opinion or are you happy with the way it is?

I am pretty sure with the good management this can be resolved without people having to pay more tax- they collect enough and they can lower the cost of these nurseries for everyone but it is not going to happen as there is no incentive.
I am thinking about the huge amount of potential workforce who is sitting at home right now like I am who could be paying tax.

kveta- I am in a very average paid job (school) and any more hours are sending me into paying for two kids as the elder one is at school and I am automatically in minus.
In other words I can only afford to work within schoolhours- and that is just to make the brain tick and keep the cv "liquid" . As you said the burden falls upon the mother- my husband's income becomes irrelevant in a decision about my work. It is just the way it is with most couples I'd say.

"This is not a mum issue. It is a parent issue."

We have one pot for money in and out. At the time mine were in nursery, the fees were about £10 a month less than my take home pay. If I had stayed at home then we would have been very slightly better off. Whereas if DH styed at home we would have been worse off as he was a higher earner. Therefore I was 'working for nothing'.

I have a friend who's DH is very high earner and she was slightly over min wage. She says she can't work because she would earn less than the cost of childcare. Its slightly flawed logic as when you combine the two salaries together there is plenty of surplus for childcare but I see where she is coming from.

There are many reasons why childcare is relatively expensive here in the uk but I?m not sure why anyone should think that childcare should be tax deductible, it is not a direct expense- dare I say it could be thought of as a choice (cringing here but some people choose to work rather than it being a necessity). Many people work in school hours or have relatives do the childcare, and not all my clients work or if they work I often have children while they pursue hobbies. Making childcare deductible would be a nightmare to work out, and be slightly unfair on childless/older people.
One way to make childcare cheaper would be to alter the ratio?s childminders have to work to. I?ve had 20 years experience caring for under 5 yr olds and to restrict me to a maximum of 3 under 5?s is a bit silly, the quality of care wouldn?t suffer if there were 4 children here- depending on age of course.
The governments introduction of EYPS in every full daycare setting (forget when it is supposed to happen) will only drive prices up further.

Agree with frakkin

Sure, childcare is cheap in France, but so is fastfood. Their idea of licensing CMs is going round once to their house to check there's some form of security in place. The CM will never be checked again.

You have it better in the UK than you think.

I partially agree with Frak about provisions in France, but also creche places do not have an upper price limit so for us it would be cheaper to get a nanny or CM than send our pending DC to a creche.

Honestly, you really are not so badly off in the UK. Here it's free prescription from 6 months pg to 10 days after birth, 1 month free prescription for DC after birth, 1 check up 10 days after birth for mother, no HV (so I'm paying for my own midwife to come to my home for check ups), means tested child benefit, child care costs paid pro-rata depending on your salary with no upper limit, if you take parental leave (?800ish per month) you lose your private health insurance (oh yes, did I mention we have to pay for private health insurance?), many medical fees paid up front(?22 per visit to doctor)...

OK, that was a bit of a rant and a bit off topic but every system has its good and bad points, most of which are penalising to some extent, so we're all just going to have to make the best of it unfortunately. There's no point in comparing to other counties especially as you can never know the whole picture.

As for 'working for nothing' unless you're a single parent I don't understand why you wouldn't consider the costs in comparison to the household income? If the money's being spent on something else (child care) then you both need to make economies even if you don't have a joint account. Or have I missed something?

I don't know if you can really generalise about things to such a degree.

I am in France, and I have used 2 CMs, both of whom have been utterly fantastic. The current one looks after DS2 far better than I could: she is more patient, more imaginative, more experienced with kids.
I did visit some dire ones, but simply chose not to employ them.
It's like any profession in that respect, surely? Except that, fortunately, we are far more demanding where our kids are concerned than we are as regards many other professions.

My experience is very positive: excellent, affordable chiildcare. But other MNers in France may well have radically different tales to tell.

Hello AA (been meaning to email you too), fully agree with you over CMs(well, we're obviously going through the process now). The stories (around here at least) about crèches do make me though. But I can't imagine they're significantly better or worse than in the UK.

Purely cos that's the way it works with wtc and vouchers, strix. I just can't imagine the govt making unregulated childcare tax deductible. They may shock me, though, you never know! And I know we disagree about registration but it's not all that bad .

And yes, sweeping generalisations, there are always going to be extremes of childcare but honestly the UK = not that bad value. I think it might be a here thing partly, because there were lovely private crèches in Paris. I have a friend here who's gone through 7 CMs and just cannot find a good enough one, let alone a good one, and some of her experiences make me want to cry :(.

Ah, but Frak, just because it is that was now doesn't mean it needs to be that way. I don't think the government is going to give me any of what I have argued for on this thread because they simply can't afford to given the financial mess they are in (thanks to Labour). But. it is still a worthy debate. And they wonder why people find tax evasion so attractive.

If they made childcare tax deductible I bet a lot more people would start declaring what they pay in childcare.

As I said earlier, I do agree with OP's main point: childcare is too expensive. I think normal people on normal salaries should be able to afford to pay childcare to go to work. And childcare is an expense incurred by the vast majority for the sole purpose of going to work. SO, yes, it should be tax deductible. I am not asking the governemnt to pay for my childcare beacause it is my money which I have earned. I think that is very different from expecting other people's tax money to pay for my child care.

Childcare is only a mum's issue if mum accepts it as such. In my house it is a parent issue. I would never ever accept otherwise. As it happens I organise the bulk of the childcare, but DH does the housework. And I think it's a fair split. Tonight, however, I am stuck on a plane so he is pickingup DD from dance and putting the children to bed. So it's not like he doesn't do any of the childcare. And ialso do some of the housework... but it all balances out. Never is my job considered secondary to his in spite of the fact he has always made more than I do.

True, strix, very true! Just in my view the system is likely to evolve (so we could see WTC becoming tax deductible childcare) rather than there be a complete turnaround where all childcare becomes tax deductible, nice as it might be. How's your new au pair type person working out, btw?

On the tax evasion point I have it on good insider authority HMRC are planning to relax their stance on big company cases that take a lot of time, effort and money to fight through the courts and clamp down on small employers/personal tax though.

Would an expansion of the voucher scheme (following the salary sacrific model) go any way to alleviating the pressure? Although that does cut down the amount of tax/NI the government receives so it's pretty unlikely.

Frakkin, I think it is partly a "there" thing; in comparative terms, the general level of education, hygiene, etc., has shifted from a very low to a far higher one in a very, very short space of time, but necessarily differs from elsewhere in France and especially in Paris. There is obviously no viable comparison with a DOM, but at the risk of offending various categories of people, it's a bit like extrapolating that CMs in the UK are no use because several CMs in the Turks and Caicos turned out to be unsatisfactory.
FWIW, I had a fabulous CM lined up for DS1, whom a good friend was delighted to use when we moved away. And many other friends also had really good CMs. Word of mouth is vital.

I'd be curious to know the cost of a private crèche in Paris.
It may be another generalisation, but on the whole salaries are far lower in France than in the UK, so childcare costs inevitably reflect that.

Poor staffing in French crèches is often partly due to the fact that they are run by the mairie, and nepotism is rife. Recent changes to legislation worsening the staff ratios are hardly going to improve things, sadly. In keeping with current trends in many other fields.

Could you e-mail me details of any lovely CMs? Friend is in St D and tearing her hair out.

Nice private nurseries in Paris were 1300-1500EUR/month, compared to 650ish/month for subsidised ones. Even there the general standard of CMs wasn't that great though, or maybe I'm just picky! Or never met any nice ones (but then I wasn't looking so most of the ones I knew were either from school or at the park). But then France is never really a viable comparison because approaches to childcare and childrearing tend to be very different anyway so the standard OFSTED demand (and therefore parents expect) in the UK tends to reflect anglocentric attitudes, rather than francocentric ones.

1300-1500 euros/mth . That is a lot of money, given average salaries here.

The CM I had lined up was up the hill from St D, and the others I mentioned were all used by friends some time ago, their kids being quite a bit older. And several were also up the hill. But I'll try and see if I can come up with any names for you.
They'll still be French, though, obviously, with all that entails if you are used to more British approaches.

She's not British, she's actually German (which in some ways is worse for having different ideas to the French it would seem!) and her biggest concern is quite simply safety, poor pet. Depending how far up the hill she might be prepared to commute it as she works at the CHU anyway, but honestly I think any options at the moment would be appreciated.

I don't kno, Frak. I think the welfare/benefits system is in for a radical revamp. But, none of this is going to happen for me.

New "Au Pair" is absopositutely fabulous. She took the job as a before and after school thing. And literally as she arrived, my boss asked me to go to a project in Aberdeen. So now she has before school, after school and a couple of overnights. She is great with the kids. She has trained to be a teacher and it shows. And she has been such a good sport about all the extra hours (for which she is now obviously paid more). But, really, she had every right to say "Actually, Strix, this is not what I signed up for." Oh, and on her arrival... I forgot to order furniture for her room. What a shameful neglectful horrible "employer" i have been. .

Anyway, she is fab. Thanks for asking.

Now, I just have to decide what to do in March when I go back to work. It is either a new full time live-in nanny or an au pair / childminder combination. I am very tempted by the idea of an au pair who is virtually tax free and a childminder. I would so love to get away from the whole extortionate tax thing. I just need to find a childminder at the school gate who could take DS2 (who will be three months) for school hours.

Strix I would def. go for CM + au pair rather than nanny because the older children like hanging out with each other at the CM and if your AP is ill or on holiday you can leave work early and pick them up from CM rather than the upheaval of changing the whole family's arrangements. We use AP + nursery. Our AP, like yours, is a trained kindergarten teacher and the children love her. AP is a bit messy but we have upped the cleaner's days to compensate.