- Conference
- 2004 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 15 October 2003
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes with great concern the increasing cost of childcare and the increasing difficulty in finding high quality and flexible childcare places.
The typical cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two is £128 a week, more than £6,650 a year, which is up 6.7 per cent on last year. And in addition to the cost factor is the lack of childcare places. There is still only one childcare place for every seven children under the age of eight.
Childcare provision needs to be more flexible to meet the needs of an ever changing and non-traditional work pattern. Only ten per cent of employees now work a standard nine to five 40-hour week but formal childcare provision has not developed to meet the needs of shift workers.
The result of increasing costs of childcare, lack of availability and flexibility is that more and more women are denied choices about where and when they work and many are forced out of the labour market altogether. The real cost to women who are mothers can be as much as £482,000 over her lifetime in loss of earnings.
Therefore the provision of affordable and accessible childcare is vital to women achieving equality and equal pay in the workplace.
Conference calls on the National Women’s Committee to work with the Daycare Trust, the national childcare charity, to campaign for more affordable high quality and flexible childcare places.
Conference also calls on the National Women’s Committee to produce guidance on the childcare options available to working parents.