Childcare is becoming dangerously unaffordable

The Social Market Foundation’s new report 'The Parent Trap', published yesterday, illustrates worrying growth in the private contribution parents are likely to have to make to afford childcare by 2016.

Already too many families report that they cannot afford the cost of childcare. Our analysis shows that, in the future, childcare will become more unaffordable for families with the lowest incomes in particular, who will have to find £600 more from their own pocket for childcare in 2016 compared to a decade earlier.

This is worrying. Affordable childcare allows parents to stay in work, which leads to higher earnings and makes them less likely to fall into poverty. In addition, childcare - as the EPPE study has shown - increases the cognitive development of children, especially the most deprived. In fact, Professor Heckman’s research shows that it is the most critical stage of the education system. It is absurd that – unlike every other part of the education system – formal childcare is out of reach for some.

Yes, public support for childcare is much better than in the past. Back in 1980, the eminent psychologist Jerome Bruner lamented, 'The provision of childcare in Britain since the war is a curious counterpoint of unfulfilled official declarations of intent and voluntary response filling gaps left by inaction.'