Childcare Costs
A friend of Women Who Work carried our her own proprietary survey of friends, colleagues and contacts about the real costs of childcare. This splits the data by number of days, type of childcare, and location. We think that this piece of research is extremely useful, and also makes for shocking reading! You may have seen the video on Linkedin of one of our Founders, Joy Davey, questioning Liz Truss recently on this very question. It is one of our long term goals to improve this situation. Many thanks to those who contributed to the survey.
Childcare Options
One of the most daunting aspects of going back to work is deciding what childcare to put in place for your child. Typically, most parents use either a nanny or nursery which each comes with their own pros and cons.
We have set out below a table setting out the pros / cons comparing a nanny versus nursery. Alexandra’s child is in full-time nursery and Joy uses a full-time nanny. We want to share the benefit of this experience in order to help other parents make the decision that works best for their child and family. In due course, we are also planning to add another column setting out the pros / cons to using a childminder as another potential childcare option.
Survey results
We undertook a survey in January/February 2022 which a lot of wonderful working women who have been on maternity leave took part in. Thank you to everyone who took part. We had a huge amount of feedback which has given us confidence that we can help a lot of women out there. It has also helped us tailor the support we are offering at Women Who Work. Some of the key takeaways from the survey are as follows:
over half of the amazing, ambitious women who took part are back at work full time (5 days a week) – you are not alone and we are in this together!
most women in professional services get 4-6 months full pay for maternity leave – if you don’t then you must stand up and challenge this!
most women would have benefited from mentoring in the same industry and/or being part of a cohort of 10 or so women returning to work at similar times;
only a third of women have female role models they can look up to in their company; and
25% of women have no one to ask for help or support.
We want to help women like you and we want to introduce mentoring and cohorts for women in similar situations who are going back to work after having had children. No woman should feel alone or have no one to ask for help and support. Watch this space for more information.