Something has to give and it cannot be women

The Guardian last week published its analysis of Office for National Statitistics figures showed that 43,000 women have dropped out of the workforce to look after family in the last year, a 3% increase on the previous year. It says that this comes after decades of decline.  It said that between June to August 2022, 27.6% of women were not working because of family commitments, compared to 7.4% of men, although the number of men dropping out for family reasons is also rising. The Institute for Employment Studies [IES] has also noted a sharp change of direction on the figures and the first fall in employment for lone parents in about three decades.

Statistics are a complicated business. If you look at June to August over the last four years, the figures for women who are economically inactive have gone up and down. In 2019, 1,804,000 women were economically inactive for family reasons. In 2020, this figure fell to 1,595,000 and in 2021 it was at 1,382,000 before rising in 2022 to 1,488,000. So the number is definitely down on last year, but it is up on 2020 and 2019. The years of 2020 and 2021 were subject to all sorts of changes due to Covid so it can be hard to use them as solid comparators. Also different things may be happening at different times in the year. If we look at the figures for January to March, we see a similar pattern of falls from 2019 – when 1,753,000 women were not working or seeking work due to family reasons – to 2022 when the figures were 1,450,000. However, the 2022 figures were once again up on 2021 [rising from 1,407,000 in 2021, but down on 2020 when they were 1,458,000].

So what is causing this? The IES says it can be hard to know exactly what’s going on, but that childcare costs/ availability are likely to be a big driver in addition to people having to find new jobs that fit around their pre-pandemic childcare patterns.

We know that childcare has been badly hit over the last years, and particularly during Covid. workingmums.co.uk‘s annual survey finds over 70% of mums of children with special needs have not seen their childcare return to normal since Covid. We know that nurseries have been closing at a faster rate than normal and that the number of childminders has continued to decline. We know that childcare costs are rising and very high. Childcare is undoubtedly a big factor in women dropping out of the workforce and that in itself is particularly significant at a time when rising costs are forcing more and more people to do two, three or more jobs to make ends meet.

But childcare costs don’t cover the full spread of reasons why women are dropping out. These include, for instance, exhaustion after the Covid years and other care responsibilities such as elder care. Many people may have several reasons for dropping out, for example, mental health issues as well as childcare issues. Another problem may be childcare availability, which is often as much of a problem as cost.

However, the figures alone don’t show the full impact of childcare costs on the way women work. Many, many women change the hours they work, the job they do and more in order to work around their children and to avoid paying high childcare costs. The whole family may move to be nearer relatives where they can get free childcare. Many women take up self-employment to get the flexibility they need, but often don’t end up earning much. We know the long-term impact of all of this – women concentrated in low paid, insecure jobs, women struggling to get back to work after a career break on anything like the level they are capable of, women and men doing back to back tag team jobs that mean they have very little family time together, poverty and/or dependency in old age…The impact is enormous and difficult to quantify.

Of course, people will say that campaigning for universal free childcare is pie in the sky given the economic crisis we are facing, but campaigners would argue that the returns are much greater in terms of women being able to participate fully in the labour market, to use all the skills they have. At a time of large labour shortages, supporting women – as it still is generally women who are dropping out or adapting their hours – could make a huge difference to the economy. A study last year by the Centre for Progressive Policy think tank calculated that investing in childcare would boost the annual income of working mothers in the UK by as much as £10bn,  generating up to £28.2billion in economic output per annum.

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