Increasing childcare subsidies would not necessarily lead women back to work as many parents prefer to care for their children at home [1], research presented to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has highlighted. This is a major challenge to Government childcare policy which is funneling ever increasing public resources into institutional daycare.
“We get a sense that many households are in fact very far from changing their mind [about domestic childcare] and no amount of childcare policy is going to change their decision,” Dr Turon told the ESRI. “My estimates seem to suggest we’ve got a fairly small scope for getting more mothers back into the work force by making childcare more accessible.”
The study examined more than 3,200 two-parent British households followed as part of the British Household Panel survey which ran between 1991-2008.
The research revealed an interesting gender disparity: it found the mother was more likely to work part-time and look after the children even if the woman’s earnings were higher than the man’s value before their first child was born.