Fight for high-quality, free childcare
Corinthia Ward, Socialist Party national committee
Another year and another report highlighting the ongoing gender pay gap. The Office for National Statistics has released new findings regarding the “substantial and long-lasting reduction” in earnings facing mothers after having children.
Five years after the birth of their first child, the mother’s earnings drop by an average of £1,051 per month compared to their salary prior to having a child. Over five years this is a total of £65,618 in lost earnings! Not to mention losses to their pensions, NI and any other payments, such as student loan repayments.
Unsurprisingly, this report will not come as any shock to mothers and carers who are facing this reality. Financial pressures are one of the main reasons why people are either delaying having children or not having them altogether. In a report by UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies in October last year, two fifths of 32-year-olds want a child (or more children), but only one in four of them are actively trying to conceive. The financial aspect is one of the main reasons behind this and it is not hard to see why when parents, and women in particular, face such a drop in earnings, especially during a continued cost-of-living crisis.
Gender pay gap
A significant element to the gender pay gap is linked to the ‘motherhood penalty’ – with a number of factors including unaffordable childcare, uneven parental leave (fathers only receive two weeks statutory paternity pay), inflexible employers and workplace discrimination.
Capitalist society benefits from and reinforces unbalanced gender norms, with mothers seen as the primary caregiver so subsequently the one expected to reduce working hours for caring responsibilities. In a 2021 study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, women were more than likely to reduce their working hours after having a child than men, even if they were originally earning more.
As an attempt to encourage more people to have children and women back into the workplace, both the Tories and Labour have rolled out, or promised, reforms offering free childcare, new nurseries or wrap-around care.
To date, these measures have not solved the rocketing price of private nurseries, and in turn haven’t addressed women’s loss of earnings. Even with 15 funded hours, a full-time nursery place for a child under two in England costs on average £12,425 a year. Over 80% of UK nurseries are independent or privately owned resulting in many areas experiencing nursery ‘deserts’ if there is not enough profit in that area for one to operate. And childcare can be a lucrative business – one global nursery company, Busy Bees, was valued at over £3 billion!
Until childcare, and the raising of children, is seen as a societal responsibility rather than just a parental one, the consequence of ‘the motherhood penalty’ will not be resolved. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child!
The Socialist Party demands:
- Free flexible high-quality childcare for all
- Councils to invest in building new, quality nurseries to meet need. Nationalise big private nurseries under workers’ democratic control. Open the books – for compensation paid on the basis of proven need
- A living wage for nursery staff and fully funded training
- Scrap the two-child benefit cap. End low pay and a benefit system that we can live on
- End uneven parental leave. For a year’s full pay maternity and paternity pay so all carers can bond with their child
- For a reduction in the working week with no loss of pay to create a better work-life balance for all, including working parents
