There have been widespread calls for Government ministers to carry out a childcare shake-up after a new poll urged politicians to act over “miserable mums” in the workplace.
Yesterday (May 21), think-tank Civitas released the results of a new survey into working mums. Official polling revealed that almost a third (29%) of working mothers of under 16s would give up working if they could afford to and over half (58%) would like to work fewer hours.
The younger end of this age group demonstrated this trend particularly strongly. A third of pre-school mums wanted to give up their jobs and almost two-thirds wanted to reduce their hours. Meanwhile, for stay-at-home mums, less than half (44%) said they would like to get a job if they could access affordable and reliable childcare.
Gov urged to act on childcare amid claims of ‘miserable mums’
According to Civitas, this poll means that out of 7.2 million mums in the UK, around 3 million would rather be at home more. “The Government’s data shows most women want to be mothers, a lot more than they want to be in the modern workplace,” said Civitas’ Frank Young. He concluded that: “Miserable mums make up most parents in the workplace.”
Miserable mums make up most parents in the workplace.
He therefore urged Rishi Sunak‘s government to rethink its childcare policy to better reflect “what women want”.
‘It’s not what women want’
The government came under scrutiny earlier this year over their childcare spending unveiled in the Spring Budget.
In March, Jeremy Hunt announced a new set of measures, including extending the 30 free hours of free childcare a week to cover children from nine-months upwards. The scheme was targeted at allowing more parents back into the workforce.
Now, based on Civitas’ poll, Mr Young said the focus needs to move away from getting women into the workplace. “Childcare policy is the wrong way round. ‘We will pay anyone to look after your child but you.’ It’s not what women want,” Mr Young claimed.
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