Parents across Greater Manchester are considering quitting their jobs due to the soaring cost of childcare - as new research showed families are being priced out.
A study published today (12 April), revealed that the cost of putting a child in nursery is forcing one in four UK parents to give up their job, or drop out of education.
More than 7,000 parents and carers from the UK, Brazil, India, Netherlands, Nigeria, Turkey and the US with children under the age of seven were questioned for global children's charity Theirworld.
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The research found that 23 per cent of UK-based parents had either quit work or dropped out of their studies to avoid childcare costs, compared with 17% of their counterparts in Brazil, 16% in Turkey and 13% in Nigeria.
Some 74% of parents in the UK said they find it difficult to meet childcare costs, compared with 52% in India, 57% in the Netherlands, 59% in Nigeria, 68% in the US and Brazil, and 72% in Turkey.
Samantha Meehan and her husband Michael, from Hyde in Tameside, both work full time and currently have a childcare bill of £12,000 a year for their 15-month-old son Joseph.
She previously told the M.E.N that the fees at her son's nursery have risen so dramatically, the couple have considered whether it's worth them working at all.
"We recently got notification that our nursery was increasing its fees by £5.10 a day," she said. "We physically don't have the additional £125 a month so I had a complete breakdown about it.
"I am completely aware it was our choice to have a child, but the fees are increasing to the point it's making us consider whether it's worth working at all, and we're not in minimum paid work. We've worked hard to be in a good financial position to have a child, but it's just not enough."
Another mum, who asked to remain anonymous, said she had to give up her full time job in nursing because she couldn't find childcare to work with the long shifts.
She now works at the nursery her daughter attends and says government funding is not enough to cover the care for younger children there and she worries what the impact will be of having to provide extra places.
During his Spring budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, announced an extra £4 billion funding for childcare over three years. He also announced that in all eligible households in England every child under five will receive 30 hours a week of free childcare from the moment maternity leave ends.
But critics have pointed out that this will not be in place until September 2025.
Rick Wild, a dad from Oldham and finance manager for a multi academy trust, previously told the M.E.N having to fork out on huge childcare bills had almost pushed his wife Jenna out of work.
"My wife is a teaching assistant. At one point when we had our two youngest in nursery, the fees were more than my wife’s salary," he said.
"If our youngest had had these new free hours it would have helped us immensely. She contemplated leaving her employment on numerous occasions but she didn’t want to not work. I suppose that gives more insight into how much help free hours for one and two-year-olds will be to other families similar to us."
Theirworld chairwoman Sarah Brown, who is married to former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, is calling on governments to urgently prioritise spending on the early years.
The survey has 'laid bare the scale of the global early years crisis and its impact on children in rich and poor countries alike' and 'change is needed,' Mrs Brown said.
Sixty-five percent of UK parents questioned said they have had to make major financial changes, including taking on more work and spending less on food, in order to afford childcare. Some 22% said they spend between 30% and 70% of their income on childcare.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, appearing before the Commons Liaison Committee last month, denied that the childcare system is in crisis.
He said: "I think that announcements in the Budget were warmly welcomed by the childcare sector for what they’re going to do, which is to increase the funding for childcare as it is now, but also expand the provision to cover some of the gaps in the existing system and move us into a internationally quite generous position relative to our peers on childcare."
Mrs Brown added: "For a child, the first five to six years are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but this is being squandered on a global scale. Providing for children in their early years must be treated as a public good, not a private test of a family’s financial strength.
"Parents around the world should no longer be reduced to hoping for the best, crossing their fingers that the inadequate care they are often forced to use isn’t a risk to their child’s safety or their future prospects in life.
"We need to see a revolution for the early years that brings together governments, businesses, international agencies, parents, frontline workers, civil society, youth campaigners and grassroots groups to improve the lives of the world’s youngest children."
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