Nursery World - Historical View: Is childcare working?

How much childcare is available for mothers who work full-time? Pamela Calder, former chair of the Early Childhood Studies Degrees Network and who campaigned in the 70s for better access to childcare, asks whether things have improved

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The 70s was a time of great change: we had the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act, which were both concerned about the lack of childcare.

Only a third of children aged two to four attended any kind of state-provided or registered childcare in 1978, a newsletter from the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education reported. There were signs that this was despite a desire of more women to work, not because of a lack of it: the same year the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) reported a 1974 survey showing that 64 per cent of mothers wanted some form of daycare for their under-fives.

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