The numbers that prove parenting is harder than ever

Given the unexpected interruptions to the working day which children can present – school holidays, a sudden illness, childcare falling through – the fact that parents can take up to four weeks of unpaid leave per child per year to which parents are entitled can be very handy. But how does that work in reality? It leaves that parent’s colleagues to pick up the slack, which can become a source of resentment. And more than that, the existence of that unpaid leave can mean that parents – especially mothers – end up seeing their career progression stall as they spend more time away from work. So, have working parents got it harder than ever? Mothers Emily Watkins and Charlie Bond and work academic Adam Webster give their perspectives. This question exposes an underlying tension which becomes clear when we look at what the data tells us: families have changed, but we have not transformed the institutions that support them. For much of the last century, employers and policymakers could assume that one parent – usually the mother – was not in paid full-time employment. In the 1950s, 80 per cent of mothers in the UK stayed at home. We have since seen a steady rise in mothers in paid work, and today 80 per cent of mothers are in employment. However, our school systems and workplaces still make assumptions about family life that don’t reflect reality. The result is that parents are left to bridge the gaps and muddle through. They are left to rely on grandparents, holiday clubs, flexible and remote working, and the goodwill of their employer just to make daily life possible. Last year, 26 per cent of parents told one survey that they had had to take unpaid leave to look after their children over the summer holidays. The average cost of holiday clubs is now £191 per child per week. Half of the parents who paid for holiday clubs spent more than £300 a week; a third spent more than £500. Cost of living pressures and particularly housing costs have risen in such a way that dual-income households have become necessary just to survive. In the 1990s, the average house in England cost less than five times the average salary. Since 2014, the average house price in England has been over seven times average earnings, peaking at nine times average earnings in 2021. Childcare costs have also risen over the past 25 years, at a rate 30 per cent above inflation. Financial pressures make it difficult for one parent to step back from work even if they wanted to. The law recognises some of these pressures but only in a piecemeal way. Employees have a right to take unpaid time off for dependents in an emergency (such as caring for a sick child or childcare falling through). Parents are also entitled to up to 18 weeks of unpaid parental leave for each child before they turn 18 (limited to four weeks per year), but it is underutilised – perhaps because it is unpaid. These unpaid entitlements were designed for emergencies. They do not solve the wider disconnect between work and care. The same mismatch can be seen in parental leave. The UK offers fathers just two weeks of statutory paternity leave. Spain, by contrast, provides 17 weeks of paid leave for both parents, and Sweden gives couples 480 days of paid leave, with 90 days reserved for each parent. Yet it’s also the case that parents are not utilising all the leave available to them. For example, only 59 per cent of fathers take paternity leave, and only about 5 per cent of families take Shared Parental Leave, the scheme which allows partners to share up to 50 weeks of maternity leave when their baby arrives. While we have successfully encouraged both parents to participate in the labour market, we continue to organise work, school and childcare on the assumption that one parent is always available. The disconnect between the working day and school hours is a challenge many countries are also grappling with, and there is no simple solution. In some European countries (such as Sweden, Denmark and France) municipalities play a greater role in organising and funding out-of-school and holiday childcare. In contrast, the UK relies much more heavily on private providers. A more ambitious, centrally coordinated approach could combine childcare with life skills, such as water safety and swimming lessons, sport and art. This could turn school holiday programmes into an enriching experience rather than merely a childcare challenge. Parents will continue to carry this burden until we redesign these systems. The question is why public policy still expects individual families to solve this structural problem on their own. Perspectives