Financial pressures causing families to feel the strain

The research, which followed 11 families over a year, who were feeling the strain from reduced incomes, rising living costs and cuts to benefits and services, has been published by the Family and Childcare Trust to coincide with the re-naming of the Daycare Trust and Family and Parenting Institute, following their merger earlier this year.

The report, Family Matters - Understanding families in an Age of Austerity, includes families from a range of backgrounds and varying levels of household incomes, and names four key drivers of fragility in family life in austerity. These are: the cost of childcare, the cost of living, the expense of running a car and credit.

Childcare

Despite valuing formal childcare, families using it, and even those who are not, commonly found it unaffordable and inflexible. This was a barrier in particular for second earners. As a result, some parents reported not being able to work as much as they would like, a situation often compounded by unsympathetic and inflexible employers and cuts to subsidies and assisted places. Several parents also said that they relied a great deal on family members to provide childcare.

Even the financially better-off families in the study considered childcare unaffordable and incompatible with work without significant family support.

The majority of the families, especially those on lower incomes, appreciated the 15 hours of free childcare. However, one mother said she would prefer to be able to use the free hours in blocks rather than spread across the week to allow her to work on the days her twins are at nursery.

The inflexibility is also problematic for parents of school-age children. One mother said she found it hard to obtain work compatible with her youngest child’s school hours and suggested that more out-of-school provision might make it easier for her to get a ‘regular’ job. Without this provision, she has to rely on informal care provided by her mother and older daughter. However, she is reluctant to do this as she recognises the extra strain it could place on family relationships.

A survey of 1,000 parents also carried out by the charity alongside the study, revealed that 37 per cent of parents suggested that increasing the affordability of childcare was among their top three priority areas for Government investment to help families in Britain in the future. This figure rose to 52 per cent parents of the under-fives.

Cost of living and owning a car

Rising food and energy costs were mentioned as a challenge by all families. As a result, families in the study employed a range of cost-saving coping strategies, including buying cheaper food or growing their own and selling unwanted possessions.

Of the parents who took part in the survey, 89 per cent thought that the financial situation for families in Britain has got worse over the past year, with the majority being affected by increases in the amount spent on food, petrol and household bills.

The birth of a child was a key point of transition for the families in the study and affected them financially. Some families were unaware that the Sure Start Maternity Grant had been abolished and the baby element of the Child Tax Credit, which meant one family had to get out a loan to cover some of the costs they expected that grants and credits would cover.

Most of the families mentioned the increasing cost of petrol and how owning a car could be a financial drain at times. Despite this, a key priority was to keep the car on the road as it gave families more freedom and made life easier.

Credit

Indebtedness and having to make debt repayments were a key barrier to having enough money to live reasonably or comfortably.

Often to keep up with the rising cost of living, borrowing from family and friends or using high cost credit (payday and doorstep loan companies) was a common strategy implemented by the 11 families studied.

Findings from the survey also point to the dwindling capacity of families to build up a buffer against debt. Over the past year, 62 per cent of the parents surveyed reported having to reduce the amount of the money they were able to put aside for the future.


Work/life balance

The amount and quality of time available to families tended to be influenced by employers for those in work, as well as money. Employers determined the amount of time employees had to spend with their families, and to a lesser degree, money determined the quality of that time.

Despite time and financial constraints, plenty of the families found ways to spend time together that were affordable, however celebrations tended to come at a premium and were a potential source of tension.

The study also revealed that low-income dual-earning couples were more likely to do ‘tag-team’ parenting as a result of working different shift patterns, which in turn placed stress on their relationship.

Recommendations

Alongside the research, the Family and Childcare Trust makes a number of recommendations to help families cope with the pressures of austerity, such as:

• Introducing sustainable funding solutions for childcare, and more provision for school-age children.
• Encouraging the Government to rebuild the link between benefit up-rating and the rising cost of living.
• Ensuring wider access to affordable credit and tighter regulation of payday loans.
• Further testing of the living wage to make work pay for families.

Anand Shukla, chief executive of the Family and Childcare Trust, said, ‘This research is a wake up call, reminding us that we can’t afford to rely on the resilience of families indefinitely. Despite their best efforts to adapt to austerity, we see that family life, good parenting and childcare become uphill struggles when financial strains build up.

‘The lack of economic growth coupled with significant expenditure cuts are imposing a high cost for families in Britain, storing up a troubling long-term legacy, affecting both this and future generations.

‘Thriving families are an essential driver of growth for the UK’s recovery. Although public resources are limited, reducing the costs and pressures associated with family life will pay dividends not just for society, but for the economy as a whole. The Family and Childcare Trust will be at the heart of building an ambitious strategy of investment in families.’

Peter Grigg, director of policy, research and communications at the Family and Childcare, added, 'The research displays precisely why families need an integrated response across a range of policy areas. Families don’t operate in a vacuum or organise their lives by government  departments. We need to relieve the overall pressure felt so acutely by the majority of parents, so they can get on with doing the best they can for their children and families.'