Are childcare subsidies unfair to SAHM?

[MotherWol]

There's a letter in today's Guardian: Give Parents a Real Choice on Childcare arguing that the current system of childcare subsidies discriminate against SAHMs and don't acknowledge that the work they do is economically valuable, and that there should be equal financial support offered to families with a SAHP.

The campaign group behind the letter, Mothers At Home Matter, are focused on the benefits that a SAHM (their wording) is hugely beneficial to families and society, but stigmatised by a society that values economic activity over everything else.

I don't know whether it's their exclusive focus on women staying at home with children that set my feminist alarm ringing, but my gut reaction is that choosing to stay home with your children isn't equally important at a societal level to working, however important it may be to to families at an individual level, and therefore it's fair enough that there's no SAHM subsidy.

We already have maternity rights to enable women to take spend the first year of their child's life with them, although those benefits could arguably be significantly better. Also arguably better support is needed for families of children with disabilities where returning to work isn't possible due to their child's needs, but in the absence of those factors, is it really fair to expect the state to meet the cost of women choosing not to return to work?

I realise this is a thorny issue, and I honestly don't believe all mothers should be in paid work immediately after having children - they should be free to make the choice that's right for their families. But if the consequence of being a SAHM means losing one income, is it fair to expect equal subsidy from the state to compensate for that?

Yes of course. Parenting consists of all the things, as any single parent would have you know.

Nobody argues that it's possible to do all the things, all the time, for everyone. Least of all women. At a bare minimum, during the early years of childhood, it takes two: one to earn money and one to do everything else while the first parent earns. Single parents have to pay someone to do the other stuff while they earn (unless they can call upon family or friends). But to subsidize one aspect of parenting (earning money to put food on the table and roof over the child's head) and not at all the other, is grossly unfair. No?

My concern about mothers being able to transfer their allowances to their partners is that this could potentially mean some women getting pressured to SAH when they don't actually want to. I think independent taxation gives women greater autonomy.

You're dead wrong, empirically speaking. In modern industrial societies there's actually a positive correlation between birth rates and female labour market participation. Less women in paid employment =less children. Best examples are Italy or Japan.

Childcare is key in this. If you make it hard for mothers to continue working (either b/c childcare is too expensive or b/c quite simply it isn't available) many women will, if faced with the choice, forego motherhood or stop at a lesser number of children than they would have liked. The fact that quite a few women are happy to stay at home under those conditions is immaterial - it's a numbers game.

Even if this wasn't the case, so assuming a static birth rate, governments still have a vital interest bringing mothers back into employment. Widens the tax base so childcare subsidies wholly or partially pay for themselves. That's even more so if labour is scarce as in many European countries right now. Widening female participation is a simpler solution than, for example, stimulating fresh immigration.

OK, so you are now acknowledging that the parent at work earning is actually parenting after all? That's progress.

And yes, in most cases, it isn't possible to earn an income and do childcare simultaneously. We can agree on that, at least. However, I think you are mistaken in thinking that any of the subsidies are for parenting as such. The subsidies are not actually designed to help parents so much as to encourage women back into work because of the overall benefit to the economy.

I’ve been on both sides of this.

The one thing that irritates me is tax free childcare. When I was working part time (2 days a week) I could have my kids in nursery as much as I liked and it was tax free. The saving isn’t directly linked to how much you work.

So you can work 2 days a week, put your kids in nursery 3 days a week and enjoy a full day ‘off’ childfree subsidised by the government. I knew a lot of part time working mums who did that. Now as a SAHP I’m not able to take up any subsidised childcare. To me that’s like saying ‘working an easy PT job means you’re entitled to a break but being a SAHP means you’re entitled to nothing’ and being a SAHP is way harder than my job was. WAY HARDER!

If tax free childcare was only able to be used for the same amount of hours you work then I’d support it entirely. It’s just a silly system.

As a SAHP family the tax and benefits situation did feel like it disadvantaged us. BUT I'm generally against state handouts (because we all pay for it one way or another).

I'd like to see:
Tax allowances able to be shared across parents.
child benefit either scrapped or also shared.
Nursery paid by all (state payment doesn't really cover nursery costs)

There’s no need for a condescending tone.

Actually no, I don’t think earning is “as much” parenting as changing nappies and wiping noses or whatever else. We all need food and a roof over our heads. The incremental cost of a young child might be, what, the fifth day of the working week? No adult or child can live on thin air.

As for what the subsidies are designed to do, your point is irrelevant. Universal credit is designed for sustenance of whatever form. I certainly wouldn’t want to police what it’s used for. Would you?

I think the research has established pretty clearly that there are no real benefits to having a SAHP

Oh really? What research is this?

But to subsidize one aspect of parenting (earning money to put food on the table and roof over the child's head) and not at all the other, is grossly unfair

But in a two income family, it is often the case that one of the parents isn't working for essentials but nice-to-haves. You could argue that it isn't fair for the State to subsidise luxuries.

Any policy which encourages women to give up work entirely for a prolonged period would create a staffing crisis in health and social care

At the other end of the social scale you have plenty of women married to high earners who have already made the decision to be a SAHM because they don't need a second income. These families don't need a subsidy.

The squeezed middle would carry on working because they have to, but feel resentful of those benefiting from the subsidies

If the subsidy is in the form of tax relief for the parent working it would end up in the man's pay packet which does nothing to empower women or protect them from financial abuse

If you hadn't already guessed I'm not in favour!

I don’t agree that children under 12 need a parent who is not working at all. Under 5 and kids with disabilities perhaps. And double tax allowance to single mums in recognition of us being mum and dad.

Completely agree with this type of setup being detrimental to women. I live in Germany which has an even more conservative model - all married couples' salaries are added and then divided by two, whether they have children or not. This was set up in the 50s with the explicit aim if discouraging female employment. The effects are to hugely subsidize single earner couples. It also puts a punitive tax on married women working - because of tax rate progression, the marginal tax rate on the second earner (almost always women) is much higher than for their male partners, so for many of them going back to work doesn't seem worthwhile.

There's also the secondary effect of single/divorced/widowed people, who don't benefit from the splitting system, getting hit with the highest share of tax and social contributions among all OECD countries. All in all, anything but feminist paradise - individual taxation would be infinitely fairer.

The point is that there is societal benefit from keeping women in the workforce - from the work that they do, from the taxes that they pay, from the improvement to their long term earning potential etc.

Also, outcomes for children tend to correlate much more strongly with household income than they do with whether or not children have a SAHP. So from the state's point of view, it is better for women to be in work, even if that doesn't suit individual families.

I agree generally individual taxation is better for women. I would like to see some more help for single mums though- for example we are hugely disadvantaged by the child benefit tax charge.

If the subsidy is in the form of tax relief for the parent working it would end up in the man's pay packet which does nothing to empower women or protect them from financial abuse

In our case, it would have ended up in the joint account. That's far more empowering to me than compelling me to get up at the crack of dawn, drop my child in day care for 10 hours, pick them up at 6 and try to squeeze in some "quality time" before bedtime - their's and mine.

What I would like to see is men and women working less hours so that they get to spend time with their children when they and their DC aren't exhausted. That would be beneficial to society. To do this we'd need to banish the culture of presentism, have better wages and affordable housing.

I'm not being condescending, I'm just observing that you changed your mind between posts about what parenting is.

If you think it's all about nappies and wiping noses, that's up to you. Perhaps it seems that way more when children are little, but from the perspective of being a parent to an older teenager, I really consider those things to be quite a minor part of the big picture. And yes, it has been very important to me to be able to provide for my child and give her all of the opportunities that I have been able to give her, which I couldn't have given her if I had given up work.

That's a personal choice, and I'm not saying that everyone else should make the same choices. We will all prioritise different things according to what we value and consider to be important. For me, it was fine to outsource the nappy changing and nose wiping for a few hours each day to our lovely nanny for a couple of years, because I feel that my most important contributions as a parent are in other areas - not least in terms of the model of how I live my life and the service that I provide to others.

I am happy to accept that we all prioritise different things as parents. What I do not accept is the insinuation that I am somehow less of a parent because I didn't change each and every single nappy.

What I would like to see is men and women working less hours so that they get to spend time with their children when they and their DC aren't exhausted. That would be beneficial to society. To do this we'd need to banish the culture of presentism, have better wages and affordable housing.

Yes, I agree with that. Flexible working for both parents is very valuable.

It is ridiculous to state that SAHMs are discriminated against for not receiving something that they don’t need. SAHMs don’t need help to make their childcare bills more affordable because they don’t need to have childcare bills.

Their children need some nursery education, and they are entitled to that.

So, arguably, a parent who is earning money while someone else is doing the parenting should receive less of a subsidy for parenting than the parent who cannot earn money because they are actively parenting. It's grossly unfair to financially remunerate parents who are already being financially remunerated by working while parents who are receiving nothing continue to receive nothing

Or, they could go to work and earn something rather than expect it to be handed to them on a plate?

This is one of the oddest arguments I have ever seen on here.

The campaign group behind the letter, Mothers At Home Matter, are focused on the benefits that a SAHM (their wording) is hugely beneficial to families and society, but stigmatised by a society that values economic activity over everything else.

I think being a SAHM is a valid choice if that’s what you want to do. But it’s a bit laughable to try and big yourself up by convincing yourself and trying to convince others that you’re doing some favour to society… it smacks of insecurity and needing an ego boost. I don’t think society stigmatises stay at home mums - I think many SAHM have a bee in their bonnet, believing that society does and it’s actually more of a reflection of what they think of themselves.
Its a choice you made for yourself and your family. Own it. But don’t pretend you’re doing others a favour, get a grip. And you certainly shouldn’t expect monetary handouts for it.

They should give subsidies to men who stay at home with kids

It would benefit society if people didn't assume that's a woman's job

Surely the issue is giving people the choice to work, i.e. childcare should be MORE heavily subsidised. You read on here all the time that 'it doesn't make sense for me to work', 'I can't afford to work', etc. Make childcare truly affordable.
You can still stay at home if you want to

Exactly! There doesn't need to be any more incentive to stay at home. I was literally paying to go to work at one point (childcare for my 2 under 2 cost more than I earned!). I carried on working but I know so many women who stopped because it made more financial sense to stay at home...

BeanieTeen you sound immature with your "own it, get a grip" and psychobabble.

Personally I'm gutted to have worked the hours I've work, the hours I've studied for a degree and further qualifications. Yes I worked my way up and my dc have a much better standard of living because of monetary gain but no you can't have it all. I have missed out being a mother to my now older teens. I wish I had a little part time cleaning job and claimed UC top up so I could have poured more into their childhood. Instead I loved learning new things and bettering myself, to the detriment of my dc.

They're both lovely dc and not damaged but - I made them go to school when really they should have stayed home when under the weather.
I'm emotionally drained from work every night and can't give them the best version of me on week days.
I regret the shitty childminders and after school clubs they went too. I wish I had been picking them up, holding their hand and helping with their homework.
They're extremely independent but is that really a good thing?
It's hard for me to create a home with my dc when I'm completely shattered from working FT and I never have enough time for everything in my life.

I would have been much happier having dc woth a rich man that enabled me to look after them properly, bake cakes, go to the gym, create a loving home environment instead of dragging them out of bed at 6.30 to get to breakfast club so I could go to work.

I think it benefits most children to have two parents who can earn their own money. Obviously not all, some people are unable to work for a variety of reasons and we need a society that allows for this. I am not anti state support at all. But women as a class should not be encouraged to opt out of the workforce. It's not good for us, as a class, or our children, in the majority.