Since 1980, there have been very large increases in labour force participation among mothers with pre-school children, doubling over 20 years. In 1980, 27% of mothers with a child under 5 were employed (Martin and Roberts, 1984, Table 2.6, p 13), compared with 54% in 2001 (Labour Market Trends, 2003, p 505). Many mothers work part time when children are young, but there have also been more mothers working full time at this stage. There has not been a corresponding decrease in fathers’ participation rates or hours of work. Fathers’ contributions to childcare have increased a little, but are still far outweighed by mothers’ contributions. Increased paid work among mothers has also necessitated increased childcare outside the immediate family. These have all raised issues for families. How do mothers manage the double burden of employment, childcare and domestic work? This also involves the responsibility for arranging childcare, often outside the home, and the logistics of getting children to childcare providers, getting to and from work and collecting children on time (Skinner, 2003). Chapter 7 considered how childcare in the home was shared between mothers and fathers. In this chapter we consider childcare while parents are doing their paid jobs.

Some of this discussion has revolved around whether parents, and especially mothers, have ‘work–life balance’, whether they have sufficient flexibility at the workplace to cope with these new demands. There is concern that increasing hours and intensity at work faced by dual-earner families are putting pressure on family life, as reviewed in Dex (2003). At the same time, companies are under pressure from global competition to intensify demands on their workforce. These pressures can result in increasing levels of sickness, turnover, stress and absence from work (DTI, 2000). In order to help achieve greater work–life balance and help parents combine work and family life, employers are being called on to provide more family-friendly policies within workplaces. There are also issues and questions surrounding the quality of childcare providers and the effects of non-parental care on young children.

Public policy stepped into this arena around the turn of the century as described in Chapter 1, especially as the employment of parents is seen as a major route to combat child poverty (see Chapters 1 and 3).