Does everyone think childcare should be paid for?

[Cococomellon]

I have seen a lot of posts in social media about the cost of childcare, that it should be free and all the reasons in favour of that such as allowing both parents to work and the impact on the economy.

I can see how this would be a benefit. I have a young child and pay for childcare but I planned for this and it is not a surprise to me.

Who pays for this "free" childcare? Is there spare money the government has squirrelled somewhere? Should we all pay more taxes? Will the nhs get even less funding? Schools?

Perhaps I am just very right wing as I don't see to see the counter- arguments but I'm sure many people (some who don't have children) don't want to pay for others children to go to nursery?

I think child benefit should be higher between the ages 0-3. It would help subsidise childcare if the parent wants to go back to work, or help families where one parent wants to stay at home with the child.

Childcare being available to all (whether that's free or just subsidised enough to be affordable) means more parents able to work. More people working is surely better for the economy than a considerable chunk of the workforce being stuck at home because they can't afford childcare (and perhaps consequently needing benefits)

Don't agree.

The government was looking at giving the 3/4 year old money to parents rather than providers.

That way they can keep the amount the same for years even though costs increase.

I agree child care should be heavily subsidised using parents salaries to work out the amount of subsidy. Partly because people don't value what they get for free at the point of use e.g. NHS, schooling, clean streets.

Oh and with the Nordic models there is no childcare until the age of subsidised childcare. So if you want to go back to work when your child is 8 months you can't unless you have someone to look after them. As my friends parents refused only one could go back to work part-time her siblings provide child care.

Childcare being available to all (whether that's free or just subsidised enough to be affordable) means more parents able to work. More people working is surely better for the economy than a considerable chunk of the workforce being stuck at home because they can't afford childcare (and perhaps consequently needing benefits)

But how much does that cost vs the people that will actually go out to jobs - well paid jobs that recoup some money back.

Do we have masses of roles that people want to undertake and their only obstacle is childcare.
We have big gaps in employment sectors, but these are sectors that are struggling to recruit for a many number of reasons, not just not being able to get into the workforce due to childcare. The whole working ethos of that particular sector.

If its free to all, that has to managed ans funded adequately, this is not happening currently so im not sure how we manage to do that effectively for every child in the country from birth, for free ?

I'm sure the government already do subsidise a portion of childcare, the tax free childcare helps loads! I currently pay £250 a month (after school only) and the gov throw in £50 towards it after I put in £200.

This is more than generous.

Subsidise more, but not pay for.
I don’t think it should be free.

Also to add, I prioritise childcare costs (she's been to the same childminder since 9 months) and they're such as important part of my children's development, they're literally looking after my most precious person.

I want them to be paid properly! They have children of their own and during COVID everyone just stopped paying them, they were on their knees. I carried on paying because I wasn't out of pocket due to being able to WFH so I would have been paying anyway.

We lost so many good nurseries and childminders during the pandemic due to them not being able to afford to keep their doors open.

Allowing the gov to subsidise childcare will drive the costs up and profits down (they won't pay the full amount required to operate like the funded hours) - more will close. Then all working parents will be even more fucked when they can't even get their child a place.

This is horribly offensive to those of us who cannot have children no matter how hard we try!! It is in fact discriminatory on several grounds so would never get past Parliament or the courts.

Or do my 13 miscarriages give me an exemption?

No it isn't if you need full time care for a child under 1 to 3.

I and many other childless people on the thread have said we are fully supportive of paying more taxes to subsidised childcare

Come out with nasty bullshit like this about how people who cant/don't want to have children should be specifically penalised makes me wonder why I bother

I've already paid 20k in an attempt to have children, do I get a refund for that?

Maybe try going after the countless men who don't financially support their own children first. Or employers who don't pay a living wage. Or companies who avoid tax. Or MPs claiming 200k of expenses.

The issue is that many, many people are on minimum wage, and in that case there is just no way to return to work if you have 2 kids. The childcare costs more than your salary. So there's a huge exodus from the workforce and it's almost always women. And if they claim benefits they then can't save and get themselves out of the poverty trap. Your benefits stop once you have £16K savings, but that's nowhere near enough to buy a house, so people are trapped.

@Reugny it adds up to quite a lot, you can open a tax free childcare account from 31 days before returning to work. For every £8 you pay in, the gov add £2. You can have an account per child.

You can also use the funded hours at the same time from when child becomes eligible.

There is a max of £500 contributed by gov in a 3 month period (1000 for disabled children).

It's better than nothing and I was grateful for it.

Not sure what the answer is, the funded hours don't cover the operating costs which is why some providers don't accept funded hour children.

If on UC, you can also claim back 85% of childcare costs up to £646 for one child and £1108 for 2 or more children.

I appreciate it's the squeezed middle who aren't eligible for UC that feel this pinch the most but those earning/working hours over a certain amount qualify for the full 30 hours and tax free childcare on top 🤷🏼‍♀️.

There's already help for the vast majority in one form or another but it can't just be free, because childcare is privatised in the UK. Nurseries and childminders are ultimately a business and where would be the incentive to remain operating at a set cost per child that likely wouldn't cover all operational costs?

Unless the government open a fuck load of "council run" nurseries I don't see how free childcare for all could work.

Here’s a couple of ideas?

Have a bigger gap between your children. There’s no god given right to the ‘ideal’ 1.5 - 2.5 year gap. Childcare is much more expensive for those preschool years.

Women don’t treat their job as the expendable one. Even if it pays less. Flexible working and doing pick ups/drop offs needs to become as normal for men as it is for women. Both parents going part time or compressing hours. There are options but as a society we need to push for them. That will never happen if women default to dropping their jobs, leaving men to progress up the ladder.

A few years out of work women become less employable and men have generally progressed up the ladder and their salary has becoming indispensable.

@Eeiliethya I have a 4 year old. We get childcare vouchers due to her DOB.

Her child care for 3 days a week with a childminder before she was eligible for funded hours was £1,100 per month.

Also I said subsided more not free. As people don't appreciate free at the point of use.

@Pleatsplease so older mothers, who couldn't find a decent partner before their late 30s, should have bigger gaps between their children?

Point is there are good reasons why some women have children close together.

A lot of older first time mothers will be more financially independent so it’s less likely to be as much of an issue.

2 close together (or 3,4,5,5…) if you can afford them without being subsidised by the taxpayer is not an issue.

Having 2 close together so that you are ‘forced’ to give up work for financial reasons is ridiculous. If time is on your side then wait, it will make your life so much easier. Financially, I don’t mean because they’ll have different interests and be in different life stages and all of the other reasons people say they want 2 close together on here. Financially 1 set of nursery fees all the way to 1 set of university fees. It’s an option that people dismiss!

Read my post again.

I said free or very heavily subsidised childcare. In many of those countries the maximum cost is a couple of hundred pounds per month. For full time nursery in the UK you can easily be paying £2000 per child.

I think the government would like to use schools from birth all on higher ratios than now. unfortunately they haven't considered the extra skills needed to care for lo's any more than they did when lowering the current nursery age. Current school staff don't want to be nursery nurses changing nappies and feeding on mass babies need different care to 4 year olds.

@Pleatsplease that's only true if your career allows for pay progression. Aged 23 I became a teacher and earned £23K. Aged 33 I stopped teaching having had my son (NB I tried to have him earlier, I had infertility). I was earning £27K then. 4K over 10 years. I hadn't been able to achieve that 'better financial position' you mention. And loads of jobs are the same.

Now I have 2 children and I can't afford to return to teaching, and even if I could the working conditions are not conducive to family life (but that's another thread).

That's really expensive, you must be further South then me. I'm in the NW and I used to pay full time childminder £700 a month before hours and funding kicked in at 3.

Maybe the gov could do a scheme where if you have to pay over a certain amount per child they will pay the difference. Like they will subsidise anything over £800 but then put a higher end cap on the daily nursery rate (for North and a higher cap in London).

No. That isn't what I said, at all.

The fact is heavy state subsidies to make childcare affordable for all have been shown to more than pay for themselves in economic benefit: more people working, more people paying taxes (both the parents and childcare workers, so the state gets some of the subsidy back immediately in tax anyway) and better productivity.

The data is all freely available if you wish to look it up.

But you are one person.

You can’t deny that having a larger gap, for a lot of women would save them having to give up work because childcare is more than their salary?

I had a seven year gap because I couldn’t afford 2 children in childcare. I wanted 4 but I ended up with 7 due to secondary infertility. The amount of comments I get about the kids probably not being close (when they actually are) is really telling of society’s opinion. Bigger age gaps are treated with disdain and we know people like to fit in.

All I am trying to say, is that a bigger gap would be a solution to this issue for a lot of women.

@Pleatsplease but why reatrict women in that way? Why not male the system work better so that women don't have to worry about having two in childcare?

I am only one person but teachers' salaries are standardised so I represent many people, a lot of whom are women.

But realistically, that’s not going to happen is it? All political parties are going for the silver vote. That doesn’t include free or very subsidised childcare. As much as it maybe should?

I am simply suggesting an idea that could help a lot of people in our current climate. But no one is prepared to consider! It’s not novel, my grandparents had a 5.5 year gap due to financial constraints. No benefits and not much in the way of childcare in the 1950s you see.

@TheGirlWhoTamedTheDragon

The counties with the heaviest childcare subsidies such as DK use public state run nurseries. It's still not completely free but very cheap.

Nurseries in the UK are private businesses therefore the EU model wouldn't work here. Too much variable costs through the regions.

As mentioned in my earlier post, we would need council run childcare centres to mirror their models.