The Impact of Childcare Costs on the Female Workforce

By Emma Hourston

Working in Talent Acquisition & Recruitment means you interview a significant amount of people.?Often in those interviews, the intricacies of what someone’s life looks like becomes apparent and the issues they regularly face are shared.

After 10+ years in the industry and interviewing thousands of candidates, I can honestly say I have heard most things, but nothing more prominent as the high cost of childcare and the impact it has on clients’ careers, especially from women.

In the last 12 months I have had countless conversations with women who are at the top of their game; highly qualified and hugely successful, within industries such as HR, Finance & Legal. They share with me their struggles with being able to juggle the expectations of their roles and the cost of childcare. Whether that be in-house/hybrid or remote roles, the struggles remain clear surrounding whether the financials work out in favour of sending young children to nursery to enable continued working full-time in their respective careers.

The cost of childcare in the UK is amongst the highest in the world averaging ￡14,000 / year, with some figures suggesting that British workers spend as much as a third of their salary on childcare and a staggering 1 in 4 parents state that 75% of their take-home pay goes on childcare. These huge costs are also a major cause of the gender pay gap, which widened from 12 percent in 2020 to 14.4 percent in 2021, according to PwC.?The result of this has meant that the UK has dropped from 9th to 14th place in PwC’s 2021 annual index of women’s employment outcomes worldwide, in turn resulting in a huge step back in gender workplace equality.

The pandemic saw this increase even more, where mothers with small children lost work 3 times the rate of fathers. From the women I have interviewed, this has meant it has taken the 3 + years to get back to the level they were pre-pandemic.?

In recent reports, it is suggested that around 54,000 women per year are forced out of work due to falling pregnant.?Pregnant Then Screwed states?17% of parents – mainly women – have had to leave their jobs due to the cost of child care, with 62%?saying they work fewer hours because of the associated costs. 22% percent of parents feel they cannot work because of these costs and a further 22% have had to leave their jobs due to a lack of flexible childcare.

Save the Children said their online polling found that 54% of mothers had to cut their hours due to childcare, with 40% saying they or their partner would work more if childcare was made more affordable.

The YouGov survey of 2,008 UK parents of primary school-aged children or younger found the cost of childcare affected 56% of parents who responded, with almost half (47%) saying they had turned down work because of childcare responsibilities.

The more women I interview the more I realise that if this isn’t looked at as a matter of urgency, the UK corporate world is going to lose a significant amount of its female workforce. It also bodes the question, that if women who are earning well above the national average in highly specialised jobs with salaries of ￡85k or more are still struggling with costs, what happens with the lower income families or single mothers? The situation ever driving the narrative that the lowest income areas suffer more financially, in turn impacting health and mental health.

Interviewing women who have spent 10+ years establishing an incredible career they are immensely proud of, a career that has defined who they are as individuals, and have to turn down an opportunity they would have otherwise jumped at, due to childcare costs, is nothing short of soul destroying. To hear so many women come to the conclusion that unless there is fundamental flexible working / shorter working weeks without a decrease in pay means they either have to walk away from a lifetime of hard work and undo all the sacrifices /and struggles women have had to endure over the last century.

The question remains as to how we can possibly embrace equality, the recent campaign for International Women’s Day if women are being pushed out of the workplace at an alarming rate, ever extending the gap and further eliminating workplace equality.

So, what can be done outside of government change?

Businesses such as JD Sports are creating onsite childcare within their new campus, Dunelm positioning a 4-day working week option and Sainsbury's offering job sharing for leadership positions; clear indicators that sometimes taking the matter into your own hands will help determine the future of your workforce. It is benefits such as these that active female candidates are looking for and that is now taking precedence over salary/working models.

The more I investigate this societal issue, the more I believe that the change needs to come from businesses themselves, driven by HR/People leaders. Because in a world full of inequality, let’s not make the desire to have a family determine whether you are as successful as your male counterpart or worst still, whether you can actually work or not.