An alarming drop in childminding has prompted two studies into the people who do the job, as Ann Mooney reports
In the past five years the number of childminders in England has dropped by 30 per cent to 72,300. It is thought that some of this decline is due to the removal of inactive childminders from the register, but findings from two recent studies undertaken by the Thomas Coram Research Unit throw light on other reasons.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) sponsored the studies. The first surveyed more than 1,000 childminders, with 30 in-depth interviews, between 1999 and 2000, and looked in general at what it is like to work in the job. The second, carried out in December 2000, surveyed 205 former childminders and looked at why they had stopped childminding.
Staying or going
Both studies found that, in the main, it is women who want or need to work while caring for their own children who become childminders. They work an average of six years in the job, although those who see childminding as a long-term career do it for longer. They experience high levels of commitment and satisfaction, despite low pay and unpaid holidays. Most satisfaction comes from being able to work from home and the joy of working with children.
However, childminders dislike the low value placed on their work, which, together with the low pay and lack of benefits, makes it difficult for some to see it as a career, or even a proper job.
The main reason childminders 'retire' is because they want to do something else. They want to take up another job, which is often within childcare, to train or to study. Other jobs offer better pay and more contact with other adults. What did not emerge as reasons for leaving, however, were lack of customers, tighter regulations (the Early Years Directorate had not been set up when the studies were carried out) or competition from other types of childcare.
One third of the ex-childminders in the DfES study had moved to other childcare-related jobs, particularly those who had a childcare qualification, and a further third thought they might do so in the future. These jobs included becoming an assistant in a classroom, nursery or pre-school playgroup. Although four in five ex-childminders were unlikely to return to childminding, about a third said they might be persuaded to return if their family circumstances changed, or if childminding paid more.
Reversing the decline
The Government has launched a national recruitment campaign for childcare staff, introduced start-up grants for new childminders and supported the establishment of childminding networks. Significant though these initiatives are, they do nothing to address the question of low pay, and there is little evidence to suggest that the Childcare Tax Credit is enabling childminders to command higher fees.
One possibility for recruiting and retaining childminders might be to extend existing benefits for members of childminder networks to include some form of income supplement or guarantee. Another way forward is some form of salaried childminding as extensively used in European countries such as Denmark. This would involve a shift in public policy from subsidising some parents through tax credits, to subsidising all providers through the payment of salaries. However, childminders would be required to give up their independence and assume employee status.
With educational levels rising and the trend for delaying childbirth and having smaller families, more women are now in a position to pursue a career and pay for childcare. They also have access to more jobs with higher status, better financial reward and flexible working hours. Unless the working conditions and status of childminding are improved and it can compete within the labour market, it is possible that the problems relating to the recruitment and retention of childminders will continue.
Ann Mooney is a research officer at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London
Information
- Who Cares? Childminding in the 1990s by Ann Mooney, Abigail Knight, Peter Moss and Charlie Owen (13.95, York Publishing, 01904 430033). A summary is on www.jrf.org.uk
- A Survey of Former Childminders by Ann Mooney, Peter Moss and Charlie Owen (4.95, DfES Publications, PO Box 5050, Sherwood Park, Annesley, Nottingham NG15 0DG No.300. See also www.dfee.gov.uk/research/
- Placed and Paid For: Supporting Families through Sponsored Day Care by June Statham, Jean Dillon and Peter Moss (The Stationery Office)
