Mothers deterred from working by problems of co-ordinating care

The complexities of delivering, collecting and ferrying young
children between home, pre-school education or school,  and child
care  is deterring mothers from taking paid work, according to new
research.

Young children with school or nursery school places have to be
picked up and dropped off  several times a day. When there were
children of different ages in the family, using different sevices,
arrangements could be even more complex. One of the most difficult
stages was when a child started part-time pre-school education.

A study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by Christine Skinner
of the University of York found that working mothers relied on a
mixture of formal and informal back-up support to manage these
arrangements. Fathers played an important role in transporting
children between settings, especially when mothers worked full
time.

Nearly half the non-working mothers in the study said
inflexibility of pre-school education and employment hours was
deterring them from taking a job.

The report concludes that co-ordination is as important as
service provision for working parents. Tackling the lack of
co-ordination between preschool education and childcare –
perhaps by basing childcare provision within schools – was
key.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/593.asp