Yesterday at home we received a letter that our childcare fees are going up. The letter was quickly greeted with a number of F bombs and then hurled across the room. It landed next to another letter — the one from our health insurance provider, also informing us of a price hike.
Childcare is getting more expensive, and as we saw in the 2016/17 Federal Budget not a whole lot’s being done to immediately ease the financial pain. The current rebate of $7500 established in 2008 has had its long-overdue increase put off another couple of years, despite annual salaries experiencing stagnating growth.
Many of us currently paying childcare will be sending our children to school before ever seeing an additional cent of support from the government. Then we can start contending with other expensive challenges, such as navigating school hours that don’t align with work hours.
In the meantime, we consider our options as single parents or a couple. We look at how much we’re earning and how much we’re paying and whether the difference is worth it. We question our careers and our futures. We reframe our long term financial goals. We consider stepping out of the workforce, or at least off the leadership ladder. Those of us running our own businesses consider dropping a day or two from childcare, only to make up the hours we’d need to work in the evenings and on the weekends.
Unfortunately such deliberations usually have one thing in common — that the mother of the child, rather than the father, will take her salary and subtract the childcare fees in order to determine what is and isn’t ‘worth it’.
Indeed studies and newspaper reports continue to release figures regarding how little mothers earn after paying childcare, as if nobody else is responsible for such fees, and as if her time at work is merely a frivolous activity for filling her days. Just last week one study reported across the media inspired headlines like, ‘mums earning $5 an hour’. The Australian National University study funded by a childcare provider claimed women working full time earn only a handful of dollars on their fifth day, after paying tax and childcare expenses, and in some cases are going backwards financially. It suggested women can lose up to two thirds of their gross salary on tax and childcare.
Combining motherhood with work is hard enough without having to be subjected to constant reminders that your work is, by some standards, a waste of time, effort and money. Or that you work must first pay for the care of your children before being considered valuable in any other way.
Childcare is not a women’s cost alone.
It also doesn’t necessarily have to be seen as a work-related cost. Early learning has been shown to have significant benefits on children, and can aid their social and emotional skills, later preparing them for school. As Stacey Fox and Megan O’Connell outline on The Conversation today, for too long the Australian Government has linked childcare to its workforce agenda rather than outcomes for children. We need to change that conversation just like we need to change the one saying its a woman’s responsibility alone to budget for childcare.
In two-parent households (or where two parents are at least responsible for a child) one of the first steps to considering what is and isn’t worth it is to combine both your salaries, subtract the childcare fees, outline a budget and discuss your career goals. Childcare will be a significant cost — up there with rent or paying of a mortgage — but it’s a burden the entire family takes on, not one a mother has to weigh up when considering whether or not she takes a job.
It’s clear your earnings will take a significant hit during the early childcare years, but we should also consider the cost of extended career breaks on earning potential and work satisfaction later on in life.
Children put a significant strain on relationships, and escalating childcare costs as well as stereotypes regarding who’s responsible don’t help. Research published in The Guardian this week finds those who have children are far more likely to be unhappy and dissatisfied in their intimate relationships. This is especially true when mothers feel the need to cut back on paid work while fathers in turn feel the need to spend more hours in the office. Feelings of guilt, frustration and isolation emerge.
Childcare needs some significant attention in the 2016 Federal Election. It’s not only about supporting women’s workforce participation, it’s about offering the best outcomes possible for children, relationships, for business and the ‘innovation’ the Turnbull Government claims is so important for securing our future.