Nursery World - Women providing 23 billion hours of unpaid childcare

Women are making ‘disproportional’ sacrifices in their careers because of the 23 billion hours of unpaid childcare they provide a year.

The CPP research finds that women are having to reduce their working hours due to childcare responsibilities PHOTO Adobe Stock

According to new research by the Centre for Progressive Policy (CPP), women in the UK provide more than twice as much unpaid childcare per year as men, 23 billion hours compared to 9.7 bn hours, as well as spending more time caring for adults.

Based on a survey of 2,002 working age adults, it finds women are ‘disproportionally’ making sacrifices to their careers to meet these caring responsibilities, contributing to gender pay and pension gaps and resulting in financial insecurity, uncertainty and instability for millions of women across the country

‘What Women Want’ suggests 830,000 women who provide care for an adult are unable to work entirely on account of their care responsibilities.

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