Women providing 23 billion hours of unpaid childcare

According to new research by the Centre for Progressive Policy (CPP), women in the UK provide more than twice as much unpaid childcare per year as men, 23 billion hours compared to 9.7 bn hours, as well as spending more time caring for adults.

Based on a survey of 2,002 working age adults, it finds women are ‘disproportionally’ making sacrifices to their careers to meet these caring responsibilities, contributing to gender pay and pension gaps and resulting in financial insecurity, uncertainty and instability for millions of women across the country

‘What Women Want’ suggests 830,000 women who provide care for an adult are unable to work entirely on account of their care responsibilities.

The research also reveals:

• One in four (26 per cent) women providing unpaid care to a child had reduced their hours at work.
• One in five (20 per cent) women providing childcare are prevented from working more hours, despite wanting to work more.

It goes on to suggest that more flexible working would deliver significant benefits to women, boosting the earnings of female carers by £28.4bn per year, delivering new working opportunities for up to five million women, as well as provide a boost to the UK economy of over £60bn per annum.

The CPP also says that greater investment in formal care provision is needed and for workplaces to be able to adapt. It concludes by making a number of recommendations, such as – requiring all employers to consider flexible working arrangements for all new applicants and expanding access to training and development for management and leadership teams to help them understand how to positively respond to flexible working requests.

Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA), said, ‘Although we would welcome any expansion of funded childcare which would benefit children and families, we would urge the Government to get its current offering right before considering any expansion. They would need to work closely with the sector and get costings right from the start before offering more funded childcare.

‘Investing more in out-of-school childcare would also be beneficial and again they would need to work with the sector as many nurseries offer this to school children.’

A Government spokesperson said, ‘We have invested more than £3.5bn in each of the last three years to deliver the Government’s free childcare offers, including the 30 hours per week for working parents. We are also investing millions in Family Hubs – where families can access important support services.

‘We continue to look for ways to improve the cost, choice and availability of childcare, and to further support working families we have brought forward flexible parental leave arrangements, including up to 52 weeks of maternity leave – one of the most generous entitlements in the world.’

• The report is available here