Overview
Onward found expensive childcare is hampering the economy as more than six in ten out-of-work parents cited it as the reason they weren’t working. Researchers found:
- The average price for a part-time nursery place for a child under two is £140 a week, double the average weekly shop
- Parents in the UK spend three times more of their income on childcare than the OECD average
- The childcare provider market is in crisis: a quarter of providers have closed since 2015 and the number of childminders has halved in the last decade