Women who can't work because their partners earn 'too much'

[AnnieLobeseder]

This is a spin-off from the 'lucky not to have to work' thread.

There are endless discussions on childcare costs on MN, and this is a point I've argued endlessly, but I'd like to post it again here and see if I get any different responses from a more feminist viewpoint.

When I had 2 DDs under school age, I couldn't afford to work because childcare would have costed more than I earned, and because of DH's salary, our household income was too high to qualify for any sort of working tax credits or childcare help.

I am of the opinion that childcare benefits should NOT be linked to household income, but to individual income. Why should I be forced to not work simply because my partner, in theory, is able to support me? I found that very humiliating, debilitating and frustrating. I HATED being a SAHM.

Every time I ranted about this, I got two main responses:

1. Childcare costs are not just your responsibility, they're your DH's too so he should be paying, that means you can afford to work.

Um, no, if childcare outgoings due to me working are more than I bring in, we, as a family, are making a net loss, so that logic just doesn't fly. If you can afford to suck up that loss to keep your skills and work experience intact, great. We couldn't afford it.

2. You shouldn't have had children if you didn't want to pay for them. Why should we taxpayers shell out so you can work. You should be home looking after your children anyway.

Surely it would have made more financial sense for the government help with my childcare costs, even if it was just to the point of me breaking even, to enable me to be in the workplace, paying tax and contributing to the economy, rather than losing my employability at home?

Please discuss!

Bit my tongue

Au pairs are not considered your employee. They are there to learn English and partake in the culture of another country. The minimum 'wage' for a 25 hour week is £60.00 and that is usually for two children who are going to school. Au Pairs are given spending money.

The more tasks and children involved (up to a max of 3 usually) the more spending money an au pair gets.

Au Pairs should not be expected to paint walls, clean the bathroom(s), do the gardening, scrub the floors etc.

Of course SAHP are just sitting around on their arse all day doing nothing. They certainly don't work.

The question I want answered is who takes the time off to look after the children? Is it done on a rota basis?

A recent study showed that while women earn more or less the same as their male counterparts during their twenties, this changes once they hit 30. After that men take off and earn more. Women don't because they are perceived to be entering a decade when they will get married and have children. It's the perception that keeps them behind their male peers.

There is no point in thinking you have equality. It is a rare thing in the workplace. If you do get divorced, a startling 50% of all marriages in USA end in divorce and we in Britain are catching up fast - albeit within partnerships so therefore relationship breakdowns, it is generally assumed that there will be a main carer and this will be the women. Even if she works outside the home on a paid wage, being seen as a single mother sets her quest for equality in wage back even further. She will indeed become poorer than her estranged partner.

Marriages and relationships should have a 50/50 co parenting perspective. This should include childcare arrangements and payments, sick leave for sick children (one also gets it in the neck because those at work who don't have children complain about summer holidays and Xmas arrangements).

When it comes to breakdown of relationships it should be automatically assumed that the childcare/co parenting will be 50/50 and if this can't be arranged then an application should be presented to court for a nominal fee. No one should be made feel they are disadvantaged because of a break up.

Phew. Wrote more than I meant too. I gave up work (they had already rearranged my post to part time while I was on maternity leave - don't get me started on that aspect of unequality), after the birth of my second child as the childcare costs, travelling would leave me out of pocket.

Oh and unfair dismissal because a woman gets pregnant is also a set back and men whose partners are pregnant can also suffer.

Sorry that should be who takes time off work to look after sick children

Annie, I am coming to this rather late.

You make some powerful points. I too think it is a travesty that there are women who cannot afford to work because of the high cost of childcare. The state should ensure that the proportion of people affected by this should be a lot less than is currently the case.

I have always advocated fully tax-deductible childcare (deductible against the household income) and/or lower childcare costs (through increased state subsidy), ideally both. It is a total waste for the lower earning partner to lose their employability due to inability to afford childcare.

The state should subsidise people with children to work so as not to not lose their skills and taxes, both present and future. Totally get your point about no net return to state coffers during early childhood being still beneficial to the economy.

The state is not there to subsidise the choice to work or not to work. It should be there to subsidise people to stay in paid employment for as long as possible without steep childcare costs being the financial rockface it currently is in the UK.

The only place where childcare is so expensive is London but it is usually because the nurseries are so much better equipped and they have more resources. In my area it is £29 a day for 10 hours of care, 3 meals, nappies, suncream etc all in. People still think that is really expensive but I dont think it is really. That is about average for most places I have lived.

Also in nurseries in London they pay the staff more so that is why it is so expensive. Most other areas in the UK it is about average to get £5.80 - £6 an hour and £3 an hour for childminders. It is high wages for staff that push prices up in London.

It really irks me that people think that childcare should come cheap and are willing to pay more for cleaners than childcare. . Why should poeple in the childcare industry earn so little? If Childminders earn £3 an hour that is just over half the minium wage, that is a travesty, if not exploitation. So should one woman be able to work by exploiting another....

I work in a nursery and get £6 an hour. I think its a decent wage personally but I dont live in London. I also know a few of my friends who are childminders that get £3 an hour but they take loads of kids in and then end up on a really high wage like £9 an hour so it works out really good for them.

Also anotherplaceinthewrong - It works out good for childminders and nursery nurses as they get free childcare as they get to look after their kids for free as a childminder or through tax credits. Most people at my work dont want wage rises or more money as then they will lose childcare so most people I know who have kids and work with kids dont want wage rises for the industry as it wouldnt be worth it.

I don't understand how it is allowed to pay childminders less than the minimum wage?

Is it because they are self employed? I was quite shocked when I found that out TBH, that the "going rate" was less than the legal minimum. Or is it because the assumption is they will have more than 1 mindee?

They are self employed but that is only for one child and most take in loads so childminders are a lot richer than most of the childcare industry. Our manager gets paid £6.55 an hour so most childminders are earning way above a lot of manangement.

Also childminders get free care for their kids whereas someone like me gets paid £600 a month but pays £562 in childcare. I dont want to earn a decent wage as I wont get help towards childcare so when I do overtime I do it for free when they need me and take the hours back later. A lot of my work is the same and no one wants to be paid for their extra hours as it isnt worth it.

Childminders are not employees. They are self-employed and so are entirely free to set their own rates, and the amount they can earn will depend on several factors, the rate they set, the demand for their services and the hours they work. So a childminder can work four hours a day for £3 an hour with one child, and earn £12 a day, or ten hours a day with three children charging £6 an hour and earn £180 a day (theoretically) or many other variants. Rates per hour for a childcarer in a group setting will usually be less than for a cleaner simply because of affordability and the amount of hours needed. A family may well be able to pay £10 an hour for a cleaner because they employ one for three hours a day, so £30 a week. To pay the same rate for nursery could mean a bill of £350 a week - a totally different ball game.

It is ridiculous to demand the tax and benefits system should assume that paying for childcare is solely the mother's job. Suppose we were to apply the same principle to paying the mortgage, so the wife of a millionaire earning nothing or very little got the family's mortgage/rent paid? Childcare is assumed to be a FAMILY expense, and so it should be.

What is the maximum number of children a childminder can look after? Anyone know?

It depends on the age, but generally in UK six under eights. You can google it really easily.

I dont want childcare bills to go up as someone who works in childcare. We considered putting our bills up by £3 but thought we would lose to many children so have held of.By keeping childcare cheap I am more likely to keep my job so I like things to stay as they are.

There were nurseries here that were paying the staff £7.79 an hour and were council run. They are getting sold off as the staff wage bills are so extorniate. I dont want the worry of working somewhere like that personally. A lot of nurseries dont make any or very minimal profit. Its a difficult industry as the 15 hours free entitlement kids mean that the nurseries only recieve a couple of pound per session from the government to take them in but you cant refuse them so I am very thankful to be getting £6 an hour as when I first did a childcare placement I only got £2.80 (This was 10 years ago). It has gone up a lot since then thanks to the minimum wage.

If the thread title was 'wealthy women who choose not to work because they don't want to pay for childcare' it would be more accurate and less sympathy-garnering.
We are talking about a choice, after all.

I'm going to look at this from a far more basic problem than career fulfillment. This has happened to many women I know.

You get married and plan to have a baby. You get pregnant. The most common time for for domestic abuse to start is pregnancy. A very common form of domestic abuse is witholding and controlling money. You have your baby. You give up work and have no income. Unless you leave your partner you and your children have no income except any that he decides to give you. He may give you nothing. He may give you £15 a week while he lives on £30,000. Your children now have a lower standard of living than the children of single mothers on benefits. You can't work because your wages don't cover the childcare which he will not contribute to. You have no money so how do you leave your partner?

The idea that women in general are experiencing a 'joint household income' is a complete joke. As long as you are not starving to death, the man you are living with can do what he likes with his own money and make you and your children live in poverty.

So I do think the government needs to put in place a system that ensures women married to men on middle incomes have some kind of system for ensuring that either society as a whole or the children's fathers have to pay for half of the childcare costs. That would allow women to work and escape from abusive relationships

I think Annie is saying that having children is recognised to be a good thing, by the benefits system, but then some people (women) are forced into giving up their career because they cannot afford childcare.
Which makes sense to me - I can only work because I earn more than our combined childcare costs. If I didn't, we'd need to decide as a family if we could effectively absorb the deficit - if we couldn't, I couldn't work.

CCF there is no choice if working would mean you lose money to the point at which you cannot afford to live!

saf if you have more than one child in FT childcare then your costs are more than that!

So poor taxpayers with and without children should pick up the cost of childcare for the offspring of the rich? That makes no economic sense and is clearly unfair.