‘When will Leo be getting a little sibling?’ ‘Just get on with it!’ ‘When’s the next one coming along?’ These are just a few of the annoying remarks parents with one child are often subjected to. The questions are insensitive for many reasons, but particularly as the answer these days is increasingly, ‘We’d love to but we can’t afford to have another child.’
New research from campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed has found almost a third (31.9%) of parents unable to afford to have any more children due to, well, look around: the cost of childcare in this country is now the most expensive in the developed world; the cost-of-living crisis means prices have shot up and salaries have stagnated and we’re about to enter the longest recession since records began. Unsurprisingly, parents are struggling to make ends meet with the cost of childcare outbalancing salaries.
The survey revealed the toll this is taking, with 57% of parents having to reduce their hours and earnings as they grapple with childcare bills. Some parents are finding they’re forced to pay to work. As a result, parents are falling out of the workplace, with 1 in 10 (13%) revealing that they or their partner have had to leave their job due to childcare issues, affordability and availability of care.
Joeli Brearley, Founder and CEO of Pregnant Then Screwed, points out that the UK is running out of babies, which will ultimately lead to a shortage of workers and further economic decline as the population gets older.
‘It’s a ticking time bomb that politicians need to get a grip of right now, yet we’ve seen inertia from the current Government, who seem to only focus on the immediate future,’ she says. ‘As the voice of working mothers in the UK, we want to be clear - women are delaying having children or not having more children because our current set-up prices mothers out of the labour market and into poverty.’
From the moment a parent takes the government’s low-funded maternity or paternity package they begin to feel the financial hit and, for many, it’s a downwards spiral from there until the sweet release of school (although that brings its own problems). The survey also found that just 29.1% of those who are pregnant or have a child under 12 months old are taking the length of maternity or paternity leave that they want to; many are unable to survive on statutory maternity allowance. Of those reducing their leave, a fifth (19.7%) said that they would only be taking six months or less maternity or paternity leave, and 5% will be taking less than three months.
Even if you make it through parental leave and the funds are there for childcare, availability is another issue. A quarter of parents (22.9%) shared that there were no childcare places available to them within a 10-mile radius of where they live. For 50% of parents who do not have all the childcare they would like, availability is to blame. Almost 1 in 10 parents (8.3%) have experienced the closure of a formal childcare setting they were using in the last 12 months.
‘We don’t want tax cuts or letters from royals; we want good quality affordable childcare, properly paid parental leave that works for all parents and flexible working to be the default,’ Joeli adds. ‘Listen to us, invest in systems that allow us to have children and earn a living, and maybe then we will bonk for Britain.’