The increasing cost of childcare services in the UK is forcing women to rethink their career aspirations, with many having to change jobs to suit their circumstances.

Natalie Ford, 39, and her husband, who live in Brentwood in northwest London, pay more than 900 pounds (about $1,100) a month to put their 19-month-old son in foster care a few days a week. This amount exceeds the monthly payments they make for the housing loan.

After her employer refused to grant her flexible shifts or remote working hours, Natalie was forced to resign. She is now working for a number of companies from her home, while her husband, who works in the insurance field, performs some of his tasks remotely.
"When I had my son, I had no idea how much nurseries cost," she says. "I was shocked at their prices."

Child care services have become very expensive in light of a system that has declined in recent years to provide adequate assistance in this field, in addition to an inflation crisis afflicting the country.

In nurseries, the average weekly cost for a child under two years is 285 pounds ($ 348), while these prices are higher in London nurseries, according to the “Family and Childcare Trust” association.

The authorities do not provide significant assistance to children under the age of three. But after this age, the state finances 15 hours of weekly care, while paying the cost of 30 hours for poor families.

The United Kingdom is one of the OECD countries with the highest costs in the field of childcare , as the amounts allocated to this aspect represent 29% of family income, compared to 9% in France.

Consequently, many fathers have no choice but to work fewer hours, and mothers are often the ones to make sacrifices in this regard.
"My husband is a great father (...) but I feel like I'm the one who has to make extra sacrifices for our family," says Natalie.
As for Lucy Milnes, she has been virtually without a job since the birth of her second son two years ago.

"We can't take it anymore," says the 40-year-old actress. So she and her husband decided to place their child in the nursery three times a week, which she says is "the cheapest option".

Lucy is looking forward "to have more time to find extra work" and to get her family out of "the vicious cycle".

"For the first time in decades, women are being pushed out of the labor market because they have to take care of their families (...) The problem is that they don't have any options," says Julie Brierley, founder of Pregnant with Scrub.

Last year, for the first time in 30 years, the rates of women not working to provide for their families increased by 5%, official statistics show. This percentage was 13% for women between the ages of 25 and 34.

Among the non-working women, 28.5% confirmed that they do not work until they provide care for their families, while this percentage reached 6.9% among men.

In a recent report, BWC points out that the impact of childcare costs on women's employment was one of the main reasons for the wide gender pay gap.

"This will have a big impact" in the long run, Jolie Brierly asserts, because many women will find themselves "in poverty (...) because their pensions are lower than those of men."

British employers are calling for system reform to help curb the labor shortage.

Several media outlets indicate that the Conservative government may increase the funds allocated for this issue in its expected budget to be announced this week.

Rachel Herr, a 39-year-old stylist, had to stop working on Mondays when she gave birth to her daughter last year to save on childcare costs, but these days she makes up for the lack of work by working after Saturdays.

Finally, with her husband, she made a decisive decision to move the family to Ireland, from which she hails.

"We realized that starting next October we will have to go into debt," she says, adding, "I feel like I'm taking a step back... Moving to Ireland will limit my progress in my career because the opportunities there are fewer than those available in Britain ."