Childcare crisis has forced one in four parents to quit their job or drop out of education

The cost of childcare has forced one in four UK parents to quit their job or drop out of education, a new study has found.

More than 7,000 parents and carers from the UK, India, Netherlands, Nigeria, Turkey and the US with children under seven were questioned by global children’s charity Theirworld.

UK parents were the most likely to find it hard to meet soaring childcare costs – with 74% saying they found it challenging. This compared to 52% in India and 68% in the US.

Most worryingly, the research found 23% of UK-based parents had either quit work or dropped out of their studies to avoid childcare costs, compared with 17% of their counterparts in Brazil, 16% in Turkey and 13% in Nigeria.

Sixty-five percent of UK parents questioned said they have had to make major financial changes, including taking on more work and spending less on food.

Some 22% said they spend between 30% and 70% of their income on childcare.

Elvira Grob, 41, who is a lecturer in design on a zero-hours contract, has been left feeling “close to burnout” because of her £975-a-month nursery bill.

Ms Grob, and her partner Michael do not want to give up their daughter’s place at a London nursery to save money because she “loves it there” and it is good for her development.

As well as retraining and studying for a degree, she returned to work two days a week when Yoomi – now ten months – was six months old.

She said: “I work in the evenings, I work when Yoomi sleeps, and I work at weekends.

“My income covers Yoomi’s childcare but I have rent to pay, and I also have to pay for my studies. It’s got to a point where I’m considering dropping my degree to help us pay our bills.”

The crucial first five years

Theirworld chairwoman Sarah Brown, who is married to former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, is calling on governments to urgently prioritise spending on the early years.

The survey has “laid bare the scale of the global early years crisis and its impact on children in rich and poor countries alike” and change is needed because “early years childcare is as essential to a country’s infrastructure as roads, hospitals and telecommunications”, Mrs Brown said.

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This cost of childcare means those from wealthier, and more educated backgrounds start school ready to learn, but nearly 250 million children in low and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their full development potential due to poverty, inadequate nutrition, exposure to stress, and a lack of early stimulation and learning, the charity said.

The first five years, Mrs Brown said, are “are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity but this is being squandered on a global scale”.

“Providing for children in their early years must be treated as a public good, not a private test of a family’s financial strength,” she added.

Free childcare funding – but not until 2025

The survey comes after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt made childcare a central part of his budget, with an extra £4 billion in funding over the next three years.

All eligible households in England with a child under five will receive 30 hours a week of free childcare from the moment maternity leave ends.

But critics have pointed out it will not come into full force until September 2025.

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, appearing before the Commons Liaison Committee last month, denied that the childcare system is in crisis.

He said: “I think that announcements in the Budget were warmly welcomed by the childcare sector for what they’re going to do, which is to increase the funding for childcare as it is now, but also expand the provision to cover some of the gaps in the existing system and move us into a internationally quite generous position relative to our peers on childcare.”