Woman's Hour and childcare expense

[wodalingpengwin]

A woman came on and stated that she was in paid employment despite earning nothing overall due to childcare costs because she loved her job. Cue typically depressing feedback comments from the public asking (always rhetorically, never actually bothered within listening to the answers) why she bothered to work for nothing or have children in the first place.

Is a man ever asked why he bothered having children in the first place if he and the mother of the children are both going to carry on working? Of course not.

Disclaimer: I was busy with tedious women's work and couldn't listen to the entire programme so maybe I missed some more positive contributions from the public, in which case please enlighten me and make me feel better.

Childcaer is an issue for parents of either gender. If in the 80s my chidlren's father could find and interview nannies I do not see why men in 2012 are so incapable of doing so or women so pathetic they let it be assumed within their marriages that because they happen to have breasts they are the ones who are responsible for that. I just find it hard to understand how those women end up in that position. Why don't they say when pregnant - come on sunshine, who says it will be I and not you, sunny jim, finding the nanny?

STIDW, that site is American isn't it?
Childcare in the Us varies greatly from that in the Uk
Under the EYFS, which every type of childcare folows (eg, nursery, childminder, pre-school, nursery school) one of the principles is called positive relationships and by law every child has to be assigned a key-person. The EYFS is based on attachment theory, amongst a lot of other theory.

I write the interview questions on my breasts, in case I forget them. Then I wear a push-up bra so all I have to do to crib is look downwards.

Ah, a good tip. I suppose if you let the husband choose the nanny she'll be 22, blonde and have enormous breasts. Mind you children like pretty carers, they always like best the young pretty teacher when they're 5 etc so it may not be an unwise course as long as you lock her in a chastity belt.

I'm not sure on the Ofsted position on chastity belts tbh. Might be quite a bit of paperwork involved.

STIDW - yup I said bollocks - the fact that you then chuck in spurious stats and statements like 'There isn't enough child care that provides continuity of personalised care throughout the pre-school years' only confirms me in that view.

The alternative is to pick a fat ugly nanny, I suppose and try to go for the one with the pock marked face and beard growth.

It depends on how you do the math. Obviously childcare costs should be regarded as joint expense. However once the childcare costs are the same or more than one parents income then the net contribution to the household income through that job is zero (or in a worse case negative - especially if you do the sums of what is lost in tax credit entitlements etc - in a certain income bracket where you earn too much to get help but still have high childcare costs working can lead to less income than not working, as annoying as that is)

However, it's worth looking at the long game - by staying in the job and on the career ladder this will lead to a better situation a few years down the line when childcare costs dwindle. So temporarily the lower earning parent is working for nothing, but it will be rewarded later.

In a lot of cases the mother is the lower earning parent, but that kind of thinking ought to be challenged.

Hear hear blackcurrants!

Why is the mother the lower earning parent?

Statistically the women are often the lower earning person in a couple, when children arrive.

IMO due to the fact that for some inexplicable reasons the man in a partnership is generally older than the woman. So it's often not that his earning power is more, but simply that he's been working for longer. Then when the sums are done a short view is taken on who is earning more now. I wish more people thought in the longer term.

In couples where the woman is older than the man I expect the statistic is reversed.

That is so. Women marry up - either someone older, better educated, slightly higher class, better IQ or exam results or career. They still do. Whether do it deliberately or because they are unconsciously looking for a good provider they do it in droves - 4 in 5 of them and in my view it is the main reason women are not in positions of power in the UK, so few in the cabinet on boards and the like. If they married down and out earned their husbands it would be much less likely they would cease their careers.

So how do you encourage women to marry men who are less clever than they are and earn less and are less successful?

Women earn less pre-children for other reasons too, eg more men doing degrees that often lead to high pay, eg science, men are more likely to apply for promotion.

I know around 5 women who pre/children earned more than their partners. None of the men gave up work.

"So how do you encourage women to marry men who are less clever than they are and earn less and are less successful?" DH isn't "less clever" than me. He earns less because he works in a 'caring' profession (eg, works with a bunch of women, and is equally underpaid, as are they) whereas I work in a traditionally fairly masculine profession, though there are a lot of women moving up fast thanks to some smart initiatives.

I don't think we need to encourage women to 'marry down' so much as we need to encourage women to recognize when and how they are being pressured to 'marry up'. We also need men to think that it is a good and laudable thing to take the career hit in order to raise their families; in the same way that women who take a career hit 'for the sake of their children' believe that they are doing a good thing. I don't see anyone pushing that message on men, funnily enough. Even men who are out-earned by their partners.

Just wanted to chuck in here - there was a survey last year that showed that 44% of women earned the same or more than their partner. So it's not necessarily the case that women will be the lower earner of a partnership.

Women under 26 earn more than men in the UK and more women under40 are millionaires than men but even so in marriage I think it is still only 1 in 4 who earns more than her husband and usually it's because one took the mommy track and decided to earn pin or no money whilst Mr Big keeps his career going in full swing and thus women earn up as low earners with few positions of power.

As we knew I would earn more it was always agreed and the practice that my work came first.

I earn precisely the same as my DH in a quite different field, but for the first 3 years of DS's life I was the only earner thanks to the recession biting contractors hard.

We both get childcare vouchers, and split the balance, and I only take responsibility for shuttling DS to the nursery school because I happen to drive to work 5 mins away and he has to endure the Tube into Town!

What happens in Sept when DS goes to school proper and we have ultra-long holidays to deal with, is anyone's guess. I suspect a fair bit of give and take.