Nursery World - IFS unconvinced on impact of 30-hour free childcare

The Government’s plans to extend the free childcare offer for all three- and four-year-olds in England from 15 to 30 hours a week for children in working families from September 2017 are ‘only likely to increase parental employment slightly’, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

The researchers, who explored how the working patterns of mothers and fathers changed during the 2000s, found that only 12,000 more mothers were in work each year after their youngest children had moved from free part-time nursery into full-time primary school - which effectively offers parents 30-35 hours of free childcare per week during term-time.

The research showed that mothers who had their youngest child in primary school for 30 - 35 hours a week were only 5.7 percentage points more likely to be looking for work and just 3.5 percentage points more likely to be in work than mothers who still had children in nursery part-time.

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