A campaign group in the UK, Pregnant then Screwed, recently published a study claiming every fifth of parents is forced to quit their jobs due to the high childcare costs and 62% of the respondents are forced to work in part-time (1800 parents were asked). Mostly women experience the negative effects of childcare costs ( motherhood penalty), however, it causes financial anxiety in the whole family.
More adequate governmental fundings are needed for parents and for nurseries and pre-schools as well, while these institutions often must charge parents higher fees to survive. For this reason, those parents, who are not eligible for any government-funded schemes find themselves in a very challenging situation. Neil Litch founder of the campaign group stresses ‘if government truly wants to support families with the cost of childcare, it simply must invest what is needed into the sector. Anything less will simply exacerbate the existing problems.’