Elvira Grob, 41, and her partner Michael, spend £975 a month on childcare for their 10-month-old daughter Yoomi – and that pays for her to be looked after three days a week while her parents work.
Elvira, who is a lecturer on a zero hours contract, is also retraining and studying for a degree.
She returned to work two days a week when Yoomi was six months old, but has been forced to take on extra freelance work to make ends meet.
“I’m close to burnout,” she said. “I work in the evenings, I work when Yoomi sleeps, and I work at weekends. My income covers Yoomi’s childcare but I have rent to pay, and I also have to pay for my studies.
“It’s got to a point where I’m considering dropping my degree to help us pay our bills.”
Sadly, Elvira’s situation isn’t unique. A new survey has revealed almost one in four UK parents have had to quit a job or drop out of education to avoid the rocketing cost of childcare.
The survey, by children’s charity Theirworld, polled 7,000 parents and carers with children under school age across the UK, US, the Netherlands, India, Brazil, Turkey and Nigeria.
In the UK, 23% of parents say they have either quit a job or dropped out of their studies to avoid childcare costs – a higher proportion than in Brazil (17%), Turkey (16%) and Nigeria (13%).
A staggering 74% of UK parents say they find it difficult to meet childcare costs, compared to 52% in India, 57% in the Netherlands, 59% in Nigeria, 68% in the US and Brazil and 72% in Turkey.
The average annual cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two in Britain is just shy of £15,000, according to charity Coram.
The latest findings add to a body of growing evidence that many parents are struggling to keep their heads above water.
A staggering three in four mums (76%) who pay for childcare say it no longer makes financial sense for them to work, a recent report by the charity Pregnant Then Screwed found. One in four parents (26%) say their nursery bill is now more than 75% of their take-home pay.
This time last year, a survey of almost 27,000 parents with young children found the cost of childcare had driven 43% of mums to consider leaving their jobs.
The sad reality is that women are not just considering this – many do leave. A massive 84% of the 1.75 million people who’ve given up work to care for their family are women, according to ONS data.
Elvira says that despite the high cost of childcare, she and Michael would not want to give up their daughter’s place at nursery to save money.
“She loves it there,” says the mum. “It’s so good for her development. I feel like she’s learned so much in such a short space of time. She’s learning to socialise with other children and gets so much entertainment.
“We wouldn’t be able to give her that all the time at home with all the work we have to do. The staff are skilled and clearly love their work, while Yoomi gets lots of nutritious meals and snacks.”
She said the UK government needs to realise how families are structured today.
“Most don’t live in communities, with family members nearby anymore. We’re very much alone, like many of our friends. The government needs to consider that reality, and make childcare work for working families,” she said.
Last month, the chancellor Jeremy Hunt revealed a series of measures to improve the UK’s childcare situation – including providing an extra £4bn of funding over three years.
He announced that every child under five would receive 30 hours of government funded childcare. However, critics pointed out that it will not be until 2025 that all eligible under-fives will get those ‘free hours’.
Almost two-thirds (65%) of UK parents have had to make major financial changes to their lives to pay for childcare, the new survey found. This includes taking on more work and spending less on their children’s food.
Sarah Brown, chair of Theirworld, said the findings of the Act For Early Years report “laid bare the scale of the global early years crisis and its impact on children in rich and poor countries alike”.
The charity is calling on governments to urgently prioritise spending on the early years.
Currently only 0.5% of UK GDP is spent on early childcare and education, according to the latest OECD data. While spending is highest in Iceland (1.7%), followed by Sweden (1.6%), Norway (1.4%), France (1.3%), Denmark (1.2%) and Finland (1.1%).
Joeli Brearley, CEO and founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, said the latest data is “mortifying”.
“We should be ashamed by how badly parents are being let down compared to less developed countries,” she said.
“For years, childcare and early years education has been underfunded by the government with devastating consequences for children and parents.”
Last month, prime minister Rishi Sunak denied that the childcare system is in crisis, according to Sky News.
Appearing before the Commons Liaison Committee, 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.”