On 15 July the government announced a review into the lives of disadvantaged young children, recognising the importance of the ‘First 1001 Critical Days’ to short and long-term health and social development. Chair Andrea Leadsom said ‘it is literally when the building blocks for good lifelong emotional and physical health are laid down’. This positive, almost jovial publicity is astounding from a government responsible for causing ongoing harm to working class women and children, and shows just how far removed the rhetoric is from the reality. Inequality is rising and childcare provision is on its knees. Childcare does not work for working class women or families. It does not work for children. It does not work for the childcare providers facing closure, and its workforce of primarily low-paid women uncertain about their futures. There is no government concern for the lives of these young families, just utter disdain. This is a broken system, with women left to pick up the pieces.
Provision in crisis
Britain’s childcare provision is one of the most expensive in the world. Its domination by private providers has made it both unaffordable and vulnerable to economic shock – a quarter of childcare providers are worried that they will not survive the crisis, meaning a potential loss of 19,000 services. 71% of nurseries are expecting to run at a loss during the next three months according to National Day Nurseries. As only 25% of children have returned to nurseries, the fees are simply not coming in –parents have lost jobs, or are juggling work and childcare from home and others are fearful of their children contracting the virus. Government funding has not been forthcoming – three quarters of nurseries surveyed in April felt support had been inadequate and it was not mentioned in July’s mini-budget. Disastrous now, this will also have a significant long-term impact. Nurseries in the most deprived areas, where provision is critical, are most likely to close. Closures will mean job losses for the majority female low-paid workforce – women make up 97% of the early years sector.
School provision remains in disarray. The government’s announcement on 9 June that primary schools would not all reopen left many women juggling working from home whilst trying to care for and teach children for much longer than expected, or using unpaid leave, or being forced to quit work. As if that was not difficult enough for parents, the government’s recommendation at the start of July that people should return to their physical workplaces coincided with the start of the summer holidays – yet it failed to mention childcare once.
Working class women bear the brunt – again
Working class women are bearing the brunt for childcare and school closures twice – at home and at work. Women have performed the vast majority of additional childcare during the crisis. Whilst lockdown put huge pressure on families, mothers spent 1.7 more hours on housework and 2.3 more hours on childcare per day than fathers, when additional responsibilities were considered.
Mothers are one and a half times more likely to have lost their jobs, quit or been furloughed than fathers during the pandemic (Institute for Fiscal Studies, May 2020). Those who have continued to work have faced more interruption during their paid hours than fathers and have reduced their hours substantially and more than fathers. Many women have essentially been forced back into the home. The TUC reported that the combined effect is ‘reversing decades of progress women have made in the labour market’.
The long-term effects are already a significant worry for many women. 15% of mothers surveyed by campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed in July had been made redundant or expected to be, and 46% said that childcare provision played a role in their redundancy. 72% had had to work fewer hours due to childcare issues. Joeli Brearley, CEO and founder of Pregnant Then Screwed stated, ‘On the 1st August we are expecting to hear from Boris that employers will be given “more discretion” to consider how their staff can continue working safely. But this completely ignores the realities facing women, that 51% of mothers simply do not have the childcare in place to be able to return to work . This lack of childcare is destroying women’s careers, they are being made redundant, they are being forced to cut their hours, and they are being treated negatively all because they are picking up the unpaid labour.’ (‘Childcare, Covid and Career: The true scale of the crisis facing working mums’, 24 July 2020).
A 4 June TUC report warned ‘that as the job retention scheme winds down and employers begin to make decisions about job losses, women with caring responsibilities and those returning from maternity leave are at higher risk of being unfairly targeted for redundancy and dismissal due to difficulties with their childcare.’ Women from BAME backgrounds have been the hardest hit. It is telling that even those absolutely vital to the pandemic response have been failed – the British Medical Association Chair reports ‘We have had doctors who have said to us, “My main stress during the whole coronavirus nightmare has honestly been about childcare.”’
As lockdown eases, the burden on working class women does not. Any movement resisting this crisis will need to have women at its centre.
Rachel Francis
