“Employee Child Care” – or Services for Children, Carers and Employers
| Date | 01 June 1992 |
| Published date | 01 June 1992 |
| Pages | 20-32 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459210021996 |
| Author | Peter Moss |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Employee
Relations
14,6
20
"Employee Child Care" — or
Services for Children, Carers
and Employers
Peter Moss
Thomas Coran Research Unit, Institute of Education,
London University, UK
Introduction
The discovery of the so-called "demographic timebomb" by ministers and
employers in the late 1980s "forced child care to the forefront of political and
corporate debate"[1]. One response was an increased interest in the idea of
"employee child care", whether in the form of workplace nurseries or buying
places in some off-site service or subsidizing employees' child care costs through
vouchers or some type of cash allowance. Government encouraged this interest
— for example, "the 1990s, unlike the 1980s, will be a decade in which child
care becomes a substantial part of the pay package, more important than health
insurance, mortgages or company cars" or "employers in this country must realize
that the only way to defuse the demographic timebomb ticking away underneath
them is by taking the initiative themselves to support family life and to support
mothers who want to work"
(John
Patten, quoted in the
Guardian
of 2 November
1989 and The Independent of 12 January 1989, when Home Office Minister
responsible for co-ordinating government policies for women). In the five-point
plan for child care put forward by the Ministerial Group on Women's Issues,
Government encouraged employers to form partnerships with the voluntary sector,
to develop child-care services, and to use available tax reliefs to provide child-
care facilities[2].
Increased interest in "employee child care" has led to action in a number of
cases.
One estimate put the number of workplace nurseries in 1990 at 230[3],
rising to
425
in January
1992.
A
national survey showed an increase in the proportion
of mothers reporting help with child care from their employers between 1979 and
1988,
although even in 1988 the proportion remained less than 5 per cent[4].
The development of "employee child care" (by which I mean the development
by individual employers of some form of support for the child-care needs of some
or all of their employees) is, at one level, understandable in the present
circumstances of
the
United Kingdom. Those circumstances are marked by a refusal
by Government to accept any but marginal public responsibility for the provision
of child-care services for employed parents, leaving employees without "employee
child care" with only three options: organizing working hours (especially through
the mother working short part-time hours) so that parents can manage child care
between themselves; seeking assistance from relatives (if they have relatives willing
and able to provide care); or buying services in the private market (for example,
using private nurseries, childminders or nannies).
The views expressed in this article are entirely those of the author.
Employee Relations, Vol 14 No. 6,
1992,
pp. 20-32. © MCB University
Press 0142-5455
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