‘It’s cheaper to not work’: childcare shortage in England puts strain on parents
“B efore I even went to my first scan, my unborn baby’s name was down on a nursery waiting list,” says Laura Williams, 31. This was her second child and it had taken months to find a nursery spot for her first daughter, forcing her to take time off work. She had put in a request at five months pregnant but the waiting list had been a year long. “That’s crazy, seeing as a pregnancy is only nine months,” she says.
It’s a story that is playing out across England. A shortage of childcare places coupled with the huge costs of nurseries means women are questioning whether they should go back to work.
Only half (48%) of councils in England have sufficient childcare places to meet the demand of parents working full-time, down from 59% in 2022, according to Coram.The survey also found that a part-time place (25 hours a week) for a child under two in nursery now costs an average of £151 per week.
Williams, whose girls are now three and 14 months, is from Beverley, a market town in the East Riding of Yorkshire. “There is very little childcare in the area,” she says.
“The nursery we got into is on a farm, so it is spacious and fairly small. There are two other options near us.
“One of them has a maximum of 35 babies in their room, so it is overcrowded and felt like not a nice environment. The other is a preschool, so they can only join from two or three years. All the rest are childminders.”
The cost of it all is crippling: the fee of £1,400 a month is “significantly” more than the family’s mortgage.
“What is the point in going back to work when it is cheaper to not work at all?” she says, adding that the costs have recently increased from £47 to £54 a day. The rises are due to the cost of living and inflation, with food, heating and
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