Early education and childcare can have a critical impact both on helping children to develop and in supporting parents (especially mothers) to work. But childcare can also have a significant impact on the disposable income – and, hence, living standards – of families with very young children. Rapidly rising prices and a wider ‘cost of living crisis’ have seen debates on the extent and design of support with childcare costs move up the political agenda in recent months.
In this report, we discuss how the cost of childcare has changed over time, and how it varies across the country and between different types of families. While methodological issues mean that common international comparisons overstate the degree of difference between England and other countries, we show that England remains an expensive country for childcare even after correcting for the most significant issues. This could be linked to staff-to-child ratios that are tight compared with most European countries, though there are trade-offs in setting these legal limits that could justify this policy choice. And, while there is a wide (and often confusing) range of government support for early education and childcare in England, we show that take-up rates differ widely across these programmes.
