Child Care

[Hallucigenia]

Well average gross salary in the UK is £2,621 per month, and average mortgage payment was £750/month as of a few weeks ago, so I suspect you have a somewhat London-centric view of things.

I’m living in the very outskirts of what would be considered London although I don’t have a London postcode. Some people would say I live in Essex.

A family living in my area with a mortgage and childcare costs could not survive on the average salary you have quoted, which was the whole point of my OP. You now need two salaries to make things work. This was not the case in my parents day. In most cases, the husband would go to work, the wife would tend to the house and children.

To 85% of the population - you're in London

Needing two salaries is a general thing, but it is fascinating looking at the regional variation. I've seen a map of disposable income by district, which obviously depends on both income and housing costs, a lot of the country doesn't have the income, London obviously has the income but gets crushed by housing costs, ISTR places like Cheshire and Hampshire were in the Goldilocks zone of decent incomes without housing costs being too bad.

The other factor is big housing costs aren't quite so bad if you're paying a mortgage to build an asset that you can later live in free from capex or downsize from, you're screwed if you're paying London rent.

50 years ago most women probably didn't work.

Seriously?

Is this because they were taking care of their kids / family?

HYD

Certainly not in 9-5 "career" jobs, they might have had something part-time before then. To take one example, the LSE didn't have any women brokers until 1973 :
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/women ... hange.html

It went along with perhaps the biggest social change of the late 20th century which was a massive shift in the age of first baby, which went from something like 24 to 32 between about 1975 and the early 90s.

[Howyoudoin]

Taking away the fact that Women didn’t work for the stock exchange until 1973 (they still struggle to get into some golf clubs now I understand), my Mother told me that she was working full time in the 60s until she had me. She hasn’t worked* since. So was this not usual?

HYD

* As in paid employment. God knows she has worked harder than any of us to keep this family going in the last 50 years and continues to do so. X

[Hallucigenia]

my Mother told me that she was working full time in the 60s until she had me. She hasn’t worked* since. So was this not usual?

Not particularly, although it was the mid-60's where it really started to take off, and even then the majority were part-time. There'd always been a percentage (10-20%?) working as maids, housekeepers etc, WWI changed perceptions somewhat and WWII further still. A relative was a minor pioneer in a white collar field and from what I can tell worked fairly full-time through much of the 1920s and 30s until having kids, and AIUI that was really quite rare for a girl from a privileged family who normally would have expected to have got married pronto.

I think it only went over 50% of women working outside the home around the time of the Equal Pay Act in 1970, I'm sure there's detailed stats somewhere but eg :
https://ifs.org.uk/publications/rise-an ... loyment-uk

The employment rate among women of ‘prime working age’ (aged 25-54) is up from 57% in 1975 to a record high of 78% in 2017.
This predominantly reflects an increase in full-time employment, from 29% in 1985 (when data on hours of work began) to 44% in 2017.

[Gerry557]

50 years ago most women probably didn't work.

Seriously?

Is this because they were taking care of their kids / family?

HYD

Probably. I don't know what childcare facilities existed back then. It wasn't as easy for women to work if they wanted too. Some were expected to quit work if they got pregnant and that was compulsory in the armed forces until only recently.

There was an expectation that the man of the house would provide for the family and the woman would look after the house and and children.

Today is different of course, legislation has changed over the years and more childcare facilities exist. Affordability is a different issue. House purchase were limited to 3.5x wage sometimes an extra x1 if both worked. Now it appears that both have to work. In that sense it's maybe a step backwards especially if the mother want to choose to stay at home. There are many advantages with doing so but finance the major negative.

If we expect full time work from mothers, childcare needs to be available. I know some large organisations that provide it locally for their work force and probably provide a level of subsidy. I think there was a voucher scheme too but often it didn't cover all the hours expected or the costs to the facility.

[scotia]

Yes going back over 50 years, both of our mothers had not worked after marriage, and when our first child arrived, my wife also stopped working. This pattern was very common over all social groups. Many of my academic colleagues (including myself) had wives with excellent academic qualifications - but looking after the children became their employment. When our children approached their teens, my wife started back part-time in academia - with some grudging acceptance from our parents - although later they were fully supportive.
My son and his partner decided to use child minders for both of their children, and this seems to have worked well. My daughter returned to 4-day work, and her husband has remained home to look after their son. This also has worked well.
The division of responsibilities is interesting. I was never taught to cook or carry out household duties, and although I do give a helping hand , the majority of this is still carried out by my wife (we are both long retired). But she was determined that both of our children would be better trained - so my son does all the cooking, with his (French) partner happy to leave him to it. And my daughter's (English) husband also acts as cook, with my daughter sometimes acting as a guest chef at weekends .
Our first house was a 2 bedroom villa flat costing £3600, and a few years later we stepped up to a 3 bedroom semi at £6200. The mortgage factor was around 2.5 times salary , but this could be squeezed up a bit, since I was on an increasing academic pay scale. Wife's earnings were ignored.