A new opinion poll commissioned by the Iona Institute looks at people’s ideal work-life choices. It finds that most people, given the financial freedom, would not work full-time, but if also finds marked differences between the sexes, differences feminists such as our Children’s Minister, Katherine Zappone (pictured), ought to carefully note.
In the recent Budget, Zappone unveiled a plan to give further State-subsidies to day-care (called by its advocates, ‘early education’), and to increase these subsidies as resources permit.
This reasoning is based on two false premises. First, the belief that most people either want to or have to work full-time, and secondly, that when they do work, they want to put their young children in day-care centres.
Our new opinion poll, conducted by Amarach Research, asked people, ‘If money were no object, and you were free to do whatever you wanted, would you stay at home, would you work full time or would you work part time?’
Only a minority of people (21pc) would work full-time if given a free choice, 26pc would quit work and 53pc would work part-time. Perhaps the surprising thing is that 74pc would continue to work even if they had the financial freedom not to do so.
The age of a person influences the answer they give. Only 16pc of 18-24 year olds would quit work completely given the chance, versus 34 percent of people over 55.
But the sex of the respondent and whether they have children under 17 or not is also a big determinant of the answer they will give.
Women with children under 17 are less likely than the average to want to work full-time. Only 17pc gave this answer. Thirty-five percent would opt to stay at home, while 48pc would opt for part-time work. The answers given by men with children under 17 were 37pc, 18pc and 45pc respectively. So women in this category are twice as likely as men to opt to stay at home and men are twice as likely to opt for full-time work.
These are the answers people give in an ideal world. The world is not ideal obviously and many people do not have the financial freedom to strike their perfect work-life balance.
But what we do see is that it is entirely false to assume that everyone wants to be in full-time work and it is just as false to believe men and women will give the same answers as each other to questions about their ideal work-life balance.
The State can only do so much to help people strike their perfect balance but what is abundantly clear is that discriminating in favour of crèches at the expense of other child-care choices like minding your child at home, or having a relative do so, is not the way to go. Crèche-care is the ideal for only a small minority of people.
In a poll we commissioned in 2013, again conducted by Amarach, people were asked which was their preferred arrangement for caring for children under five during the working day.
Forty-nine percent opted for care at home by a parent. Twenty-seven percent said their preferred option was for a family member to mind their child during the day, while only 17pc opted for a crèche.
This demolishes the second false premise that subsidising day-care is based on, namely that people want to put their children into crèches.
The fairest way for the State to proceed is to support all the various child-care choices parents want to make in a neutral way insofar as resources allow, and not to discriminate against home-care in favour of day-care.
(PS. Our question about people’s ideal work-life balance was lifted straight from a poll commissioned by the New York Times that found broadly similar results.)
