A demonstration demanding affordable childcare, improvements in parental leave and flexible working hours is being held in Bristol today (October 29). Families will gather at College Green this morning from 10am where there will be speeches and kids activities before the march around Bristol city centre begins at 11.30am.
Over a thousand protesters are expected to turn out, including dads who will also be among those giving speeches. The march, organised by Pregnant then Screwed, will be taking place in several cities across the country and are calling on the government to address the economic disadvantages which are faced predominantly by women after having children.
The march will be family friendly and will have a variety of activities including music, storytelling, crafts and face painting. They are demanding good quality affordable childcare for all children, flexible working hours as the default and properly paid parental leave for all parents.
READ MORE: March of the Mummies comes to Bristol to demand fair deal for working parents
This comes as new figures show families in the South West are now spending more than £1,100 a month on childcare on average. The TUC found that the average family in the region now spends £1,147 on childcare each month - which equates to £13,764 a year.
According to Pregnant Then Screwed, the UK has the second most expensive childcare in the OECD, the third worst ranking maternity benefit and the worst ranking paternity benefit in Europe. A recent survey published by Pregnant then Screwed and Mumsnet of 27,000 parents found that the majority were paying more for childcare than rent.
Earlier this week, a young woman who will be attending the march said the cost of childcare is putting her off having children. One of the organisers, Mhairi Threlfall, has to pay £1,200 in childcare just to keep her job.
The high cost of childcare means that, after women end their maternity leave, a huge chunk of their income goes to childcare costs and, in some cases, they lose all their earnings while their child is in full time nursery.
While some mothers make that sacrifice to keep their job, others will quit their job rather than paying to work. For single mothers and those without flexible working hours the situation is “impossible”, explained Mhairi.
Research from the TUC showed that the gender pay gap rises to 34 per cent for women over forty with children who are working full-time. What has been called ‘The motherhood pay penalty’ doesn’t affect working fathers in the same way.
Although the majority of dependent children in the UK are in two-parent families, recent research shows that women do 60 per cent more unpaid work than men in childcare and housework which has a negative impact on mental health.
For Mhairi, this is because men tend to be the higher earners and so, if one parent has to give up work after having children, this responsibility tends to fall on the mother. In addition to this, paternity leave in the UK is a maximum of five weeks.
“For men it’s often not worth them doing it, which is why a lot of them aren’t taking [paternity leave] and they tend to be the higher earners. My husband is the higher earner so there wasn’t any point in him taking time off and I couldn’t even choose to go back early because I didn’t have childcare,” explained Mhairi .
Figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show a huge decrease in stay-at-home mothers over the last ten years, but little change in the number of stay-at-home dads or men going into part-time work after having children.
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