On this year’s International Women’s Day, social media was alight with support for the day that celebrates women, including a post on the government’s Instagram account about their ‘record of empowering women to fulfil their potential.’ It was also the day they rejected calls to look into childcare funding and the staggeringly high cost of UK childcare, which forces many mothers out the workplace, despite over 100,000 of you signing Grazia’s petition with Pregnant Then Screwed for an in depth review into the UK's childcare system.
On International Women’s Day, an email hit the inboxes of the 140,000 of you who had signed our petition, to say that the government had no plans to look into the cost or availability of childcare. The Department for Education said that while the government ‘recognised the need for ongoing collaboration and discussion on the issue’ it had been ‘collectively concluded that a formal review is not needed’.
In response to the government’s decision this week, Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, said: ‘Affordable childcare is a critical component of gender equality. Without it, hundreds of thousands of mothers are forced out of their jobs, whilst 84% say that the cost of childcare has had a negative impact on their ability to progress their career. We will never have gender equality whilst women cannot afford to go to work. Happy International Women’s Day to you too!’
When Grazia launched the campaign last year, thousands of you told us you were being forced out of the workplace, forced to choose between paying for childcare or having a career. Each week we receive hundreds of emails from readers explaining how the current childcare system simply doesn't work: 'I currently pay to work,' wrote a teacher recently, who has three children in nursery (including twins), three days a week, at the eye-watering cost of £32,000 per year. 'I earn less than it costs to send them to nursery. And on the days I work, I see them for maybe an hour a day.'
'We simply cannot afford to have another child until our son is 3,' wrote another, 'when he'll qualify for some free hours. We feel sad that time is slipping by for me as an "older mother" at 38, but we aren't having another child because we simply cannot afford it.'
The UK currently has the third most expensive childcare in the world, with the average full time nursery place for one child standing at £12,376 per year. Free childcare hours only become available when a child turns three, while in Sweden, all children over the age of one can attend full-time preschool, with fees capped at 3% of parental income. In Germany, children over one are entitled to a place in a state- provided nursery at a low cost to parents, while in Korea the nursery system is entirely state-subsidised.
‘We see from Scandinavian countries that having a properly subsidised system has enormous benefits for the economy,’ says Joeli. ‘The Women’s Budget Group, which analyses how Government policies affect women, estimates that up to 95% of the cost of free universal preschool childcare could be recouped from the increase in employment and reduction in state benefits.’
At the time of launching our campaign, Joeli told Grazia: ‘We want to look at how many mothers would work more if childcare was properly funded, and the benefits that would have. We want to know what a system that makes childcare affordable and pays its workers a decent wage would look like.'
And we still want to see what that looks like.