Give up your career or work for £30 a day: The impossible choice facing women across UK
By Katie Williams, live news reporter
Returning to work after spending a long time on leave with a baby is not always an easy transition.
As well as the emotional toll it can take, parents also have to decide how to juggle looking after their little one while trying to get back into the swing of life in the workforce.
And whether off for a few months or a year, mothers have reported facing difficulties over becoming a working parent, due to soaring childcare costs or a lack of support from their employer around flexible working.
Some mums say going back to work and paying for childcare means they’ll struggle to break even or end up in the red each month. Many have ended up quitting as a result despite enjoying their job and wanting career progression.
Stats tell the story
A recent study by UN Women UK found one in four (25%) of mothers with children aged up to 18 years old have had to unwillingly give up work, compared with 7% of fathers. The figure rose to a third of women with children under five.
A similar proportion of mums (26%) have had to unwillingly reduce their working hours for childcare reasons, versus 8% of dads.
When mothers were asked their reasons for giving up work, financial reasons came top for children of all ages. A lack of childcare places or flexible working options were the next most common reasons for mums with children up to 11 years old.
It doesn’t help that the UK has some of the highest childcare costs in the world, and how much parents pay is a postcode lottery.
Research by The Co-operative Bank earlier last year found that London is the most expensive place for childcare, with monthly full-time childcare costs reaching £1,781 on average. Costs can be more than half that in cities further north.
According to children’s charity Coram, the average annual cost of a part-time (25-hour) nursery place for a child under two in Britain rose by 7.4% between 2023 and 2024. Since 2014, it has risen by a third.
Case study: Rebecca would have ended up working for £30 a day
We spoke to several women who ended up leaving work due to pressures they faced as working mothers, with most saying finances or a lack of job flexibility drove their decision.
Rebecca Day, 37, from Suffolk, previously had a managerial job with a salary of more than £40,000.
She worked full-time and then part-time after having her son in 2019, but when assessing her finances after having a daughter in 2023, she decided to leave her job completely upon realising she would essentially earn no more than £30 per day after paying for childcare, fuel and an after-school club for her son.
“The whole system is so broken, it’s kind of ridiculous,” she said.
“I’ve tried it all… it’s just so hard, you literally cannot win. People will judge you for staying at home, they’ll think ‘why aren’t you going and getting a career?'”
Rebecca said leaving her job took a huge “mental and emotional strain” and left her feeling like her pride had been hit.
“I’m making a decision now for this next four or five years maybe. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get back in,” she said. “So it’s really hard, it’s been turmoil.”
She continued: “It makes me angry and it makes me sorry for other people in less well-paid careers.”
Rebecca now works an out-of-hours job which allows her to spend every day with her daughter.
“My career was really important to me. But I just have to keep telling myself being a mother is important to me too, and it doesn’t make me less of an intelligent or academic or professional person now that I’m not ‘traditionally’ working or in something competitive.
“It winds me up that men don’t have to ever be put in this position to make this choice.”
Case study: Teacher Charlotte had to accept demotion
Charlotte, a teacher from Hampshire, had a head of department role before she had her first baby in 2018.
After taking a year’s maternity leave, she wanted to reduce her hours but was told it wouldn’t work – a familiar story for thousands of women.
She spent a year working full-time, juggling childcare and her job and paying for breakfast club on top of nursery fees, before asking to reduce her hours again. A small reduction was finally agreed in exchange for her remaining as head of department, but the timetable still left her struggling to manage her responsibilities.
When she had her second baby in 2021, Charlotte had to step down from the head of department role in order to work three days a week. Later in 2023, when she and her husband were planning their third baby, she left the job completely as it was “not cost effective to stay working”.
“I genuinely enjoyed my job,” Charlotte said. “I enjoyed the people I was with and miss that part of my life where I could have a social interaction that comes with teaching.
“It was more than just giving up the salary. I was giving up lots of other aspects as well.”
Charlotte said she now feels “conflicted” about being a stay-at-home mother.
“I’ve already booked my youngest a place in nursery when he’ll be turning one, with no idea of why – just more because I was hoping I would have something figured out by then.
“If all my kids are in nursery and school and I’m a housewife pottering around at home, but I’m there for pick up and drop off and all the other things, is that enough, or do I still feel like I want something else?
“I feel stuck. I might as well just throw my hands up and say, fine, I’ll put everything on pause, get all the kids through primary school at least, and then turn back and think about ‘what do I actually want?'”
Free childcare provision ‘not making a difference’
Joeli Brearley, founder and outgoing chief executive of Pregnant Then Screwed, a charity promoting the rights of pregnant women and mothers, says there are many women “desperate” to return to work, but who “just can’t afford to do so”.
She said the parental leave system means women are “programmed” to compare the cost of childcare to their own income rather than that of the whole household.
“Either they’ll look at the cost of childcare and think ‘this just doesn’t add up, I’ll be paying to go to work’… or they try and get some flexible working so that their reliance on childcare is less,” Joeli said.
A widespread extension of free nursery provision was introduced in England last year.
Previously, only eligible parents of children aged between three and four years old were able to claim free childcare, but as of last September, parents of children from nine months old have been able to access at least 15 free hours a week.
But the free hours are only available during term time, and many providers have hiked prices as a result to cover funding gaps.
Joeli said costs for childcare outside the funded hours are “extraordinarily high”.
“It’s still extremely expensive to use childcare and it’s also very hard to get childcare. Lots of parents are unable to secure the sort of childcare that they want. So again that means that they question whether it’s worth returning to work.”
She added that 15 free hours “isn’t anywhere near enough”.
“Some parents are saving, you know, maybe £100 to £200 a month. But data is showing that not many are in that position, that actually for the majority, the amount they’re saving is negligible.”
Pregnant Then Screwed is calling for employers to provide more support for mothers returning to work and look into partnerships with local childcare providers or provide onsite services where possible.
Joeli said the charity also wants an improved paternity leave offering from the government “so that this problem doesn’t fall on the shoulders of women”.
“We need the childcare system to be completely scrapped and we need to start again. It’s not working,” she said.
“At the moment we’re papering over the cracks and throwing money down the drain because the whole system is just creaking under the pressure of it being built on quicksand.”
A government spokesperson said: “Giving every child the best start in life is crucial to our mission to break the unfair link between background and success.
“We are determined to create a reformed, sustainable early years system, delivering an increase in government-funded hours, thousands of school-based nurseries and improved early language and maths support.”
