![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
Neoliberalism and an associated ‘new politics of parenting’ adopts a predominantly economic rationale which discursively positions early childhood education and care (ECEC) as essential to tackling several social ills by allowing individual parents (particularly young mothers) to improve their labour force participation, thus boosting family income. This paper considers this discourse and its uptake locally in the context of England. Drawing on qualitative case study research, the paper focuses upon a small number of young mothers who were recipients of nationally and locally subsidized ECEC from 2009 onwards. Although keen to boost individual and family income via paid work through accessing subsidized ECEC, these mothers provide evidence questioning the assumption it can be a panacea helping to reduce susceptibility to low income. Subsidized ECEC’s viability in economic terms is critically scrutinized. However, the mothers’ narratives support the idea of ‘a rationality mistake’ inflicting ECEC policy. Despite on-going economically bounded conditions of choice, they felt subsidized ECEC’s viability was undiminished as it also lay for them in the highly valued access to ordinary patterns, customs and activities in society beyond paid work. This raises important issues in a context where the ‘value for money’ of subsidized ECEC is being questioned.
Neoliberalism and ‘the new politics of parenting’
Neoliberalism emerged as a concept in the 1930s in response to ‘The Great Depression’. Since then it has become ‘both an approach to government and a defining political movement… In both senses, neoliberalism is grounded in the assumption that governments cannot create economic growth or provide social welfare’ (Bockman, 2013: 14). Neoliberals therefore argue that social welfare provided via the state (central and local government) for the poor negatively impacts upon their lives. Instead, it is claimed ‘private companies, private individuals, and, most importantly, unhindered markets are best able to generate economic growth and social welfare’ (Bockman, 2013: 14). From the 1970s, many commentators argued that the continuing global crises across capitalist societies – such as the oil crisis, fiscal crisis, stagflation and the debt crisis – have resulted in political leaders in these societies beginning to ‘forge neoliberal states’ (Bockman, 2013: 14). This neoliberal political project has been labelled ‘the most profound assault on the welfare state (meaning the full array of public services and benefits addressing basic needs) since its inception in the middle of the twentieth century’ (Ginsburg et al., 2012: 297). It includes attempts at retraction to a ‘minimal state’, but one which in many countries remains a ‘powerful state’ (Bockman, 2013: 14). Prior to the current United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Coalition government being established in May 2010, neoliberal ideology was central to the welfare regimes established by the Thatcherite Conservative governments (from 1979–1997) and the ‘New Labour’ ‘third way’ governments (from 1997–2010).
This means since the 1970s attempts have been made to re-structure and subordinate social welfare in the UK to market forces, as the neoliberal privileging of market solutions to welfare problems has been accompanied by a desire to reform the welfare state itself. Most recently the Coalition government’s welfare policies have been argued to ‘assist in constructing a discourse about social security that favours a renewal and deepening of neo-liberalization’ (Wiggan, 2012: 383). As such, neoliberal discourse currently defines welfare problems such as poverty not as structural problems which are the by-product of the demand side of the market economy, but rather as the problem behaviours within many ‘troubled families’ and of many welfare recipients, the lack of qualifications and motivations of the poor, their resulting low levels of employability and their limited earning potential within the labour market (Levitas, 2012: 453). These neoliberal restructuring policies therefore advance a discourse of social justice which is pervaded by an emphasis on labour market participation, individualism and self-responsibility. The UK Coalition government’s 2011 child poverty strategy can be used as an example (Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Education (DWP and DfE), 2011). Its conflation of ‘troubled families’ and the ‘problem behaviours’ of individual parents constructs the problem of poverty in a way which then allows for it to be made amenable to a particular diagnosis and treatment via a localized approach. The strategy implies poor families, and in particular parents, are culpable for their own poverty. The strategy identifies the family and individuals as the site for interventions to address poverty, and central government has a facilitative role in ensuring poor children and their parents get help via social investment in particular local services. This strategy and wider welfare policy therefore identifies parents and parenting as both the cause of, and solution to, social ills such as poverty:
Recent years have seen Governments prioritize family as a mechanism for tackling social ills. More particularly, in the UK, bad parenting has been identified as a prominent causal factor in poverty and social disorder, with contemporary policy solutions focusing on regulating and controlling childrearing practices. (Gillies, 2008: 1079)
As such, within this ‘new politics of parenting’, it has increasingly been parents, specifically mothers, that are being held accountable for their children’s success or failure with regards to social (im)mobility and in becoming ‘good citizens’. As part of this shift from welfare state to a social investment model, the childcare practices of parenting have been constructed as an essential element of positive social mobility and as a promoter of social equity. With the ascendancy of neoliberalism, this ‘new politics of parenting’ has been an increasingly prominent feature of UK government policy since the 1980s. From the 1980s onwards ‘it was no longer enough for parents to feed, clothe and send their children to school’. Rather, they were also expected to ‘turn their children into model citizens, self-supporting and self-motivating, behaving themselves appropriately… and ready to enter the workforce at the correct time’ (Montgomery, 2013: 22). Early childhood education and care (ECEC) became viewed as essential to supporting parents in this task.
ECEC, markets and the need for subsidies
Across developed countries the global influence of ‘the new politics of parenting’ means ECEC and parenting interventions are now routinely imposed as solutions to long-standing social problems, ensuring mothers in particular are implicated and targeted for regulation (Allen, 2011; Faircloth et al., 2013; Field, 2010; OECD, 2012). Given the ascendancy of neoliberal ideology, the market (rather than the state) has become the preferred delivery model for ECEC provision across many countries, including the UK (Lloyd, 2013: 4). Gillian Paul (2013: 246) notes how generally, across nation states, when central governments intervene in the provision of childcare ‘a critical divide’ has been whether to promote equality (including more equal educational development) or labour market entry (particularly for mothers). Ideologically – given its neoliberal credentials – the UK Coalition (and from the 1980s the previous Conservative and New Labour) government’s pre-eminent focus is on promoting markets in two senses. First, state subsidies have been provided to promote and support the long-standing ECEC market in England. These are directed at ‘protecting’ low income families from the ECEC market’s failings – in particular preventing the exclusion of some parents as ‘proxy customers’ from this market because of high childcare costs. Second, subsidized ECEC then enables individual parents (and particularly mothers) on a low income to participate in the labour market which, in theory, increases household income to combat poverty, etc.
The remainder of this paper focuses on subsidized ECEC’s potential to promote labour market participation, particularly for mothers on relatively low incomes, as a means to help them escape socio-economic disadvantage. Since the 1980s, neoliberal ideology expressed through ‘the new politics of parenting’ has advocated an ‘adult worker family model’ via family and welfare policy (Lewis, 2002). Parents are seen as primarily individual workers in the labour market, who use their earned income to support themselves and their children (in two parent families this income is pooled). As such, mothers ‘are seen as taking on the identity of independent paid-worker rather than “dependent” carer’ (Duncan et al., 2004: 246). ECEC allows individual mothers in particular to find paid work and in this way government ministers claim it ‘is essential to unlock social mobility… that is why this Coalition government is committed to strengthening and supporting provision in the early years’ (Teather, 2012). Practitioner groups and academics also claim ECEC ‘helps parents – particularly mothers – back to work’ (4Children, 2014), and this is argued to be important because ‘enabling more mothers to work would boost household incomes and help tackle in-work poverty’ (Lawton and Thompson, 2013: 1).
However, the English ECEC market has traditionally not been free at the point of use and within it parents have continued to purchase what they can afford beyond the limited subsidized provision (Lloyd, 2013: 4). ECEC costs for parents within the English market are among some of the highest in the world. This means for many years ECEC in England was potentially out of reach for many disadvantaged families (Daycare Trust, 2007). Increasingly, under New Labour and now the Coalition, parents have been supported and protected as customers in the ECEC market via free education places, initially for three and four year old children but more recently for ‘the most disadvantaged’ two year olds, and via public subsidies including tax credits and vouchers. But this entitlement to free education places is limited to 15 hours a week, which has raised issues about the potential for the ECEC market to deliver an equitable service (Lloyd and Penn, 2013) and in regard to its effectiveness for tackling poverty (4Children, 2014).
Sure Start County Durham childcare subsidy project
Nationally, as indicated, successive UK governments have subsidized free ECEC for three and four year old children – and more recently two year olds – and a key aim of such provision is to ‘free’ parents to participate in the labour market. Locally there has also been a response in this respect. Section 6 of the UK’s 2006 Childcare Act sets out the duties placed upon all English local authorities (LAs) to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the provision of ECEC is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. This includes a responsibility to secure sufficient ECEC provision to enable parents to work (Great Britain, 2006). The 2006 Act expanded and clarified in legislation the key role LAs could play as a strategic leader locally in facilitating the ECEC market. Local authorities have the responsibility and lead role in co-ordinating effort across services, enabling ECEC providers from all sectors to work together with other services to secure sufficient high quality, sustainable ECEC provision that is responsive to the needs of children and their families. It was within this context that the Sure Start County Durham’s (SSCD’s) childcare sustainability strategy was established, with a number of aims. The first aim was to ensure that sufficient sustainable, high quality, affordable and accessible ECEC was available to meet the requirements of parents in the county. In 2007, SSCD completed a childcare sufficiency audit (CSA) with parents and others and this highlighted within County Durham a heavy reliance upon friends and family members as an alternative to formal registered ECEC. Affordability of childcare was stated to be a barrier to accessing such ECEC. As such, it was decided to make funding available within the childcare sustainability grant to financially support those parents wishing to return to work or increase their hours of employment.
Reflecting central government policy, and underpinned by a predominantly individualized economic perspective based upon an ‘adult worker family model’ (Lewis, 2002), the SSCD childcare subsidy project was introduced in September 2009 and ran until March 2011. Its central aim was to target parents who wanted to become more fully involved in paid work and/or education and training but who were being prevented from doing so by the issue of access to, and an under use of, ECEC. SSCD made funding available to financially support these parents and this provided their children with childcare. Those families participating in the childcare subsidy project included: (a) relatively low income two parent families where the cost of childcare prevented the second earner (usually the mother) from increasing work hours; (b) relatively low income lone parent families wishing to return to paid work or education and training. Participants were only eligible if they had a total household income of £21,000 per annum or below, which was the median household income in 2009 when the project began. Based on findings from the SSCD, CSA falling below £21,000 was locally agreed to be an income level preventing access to formal ECEC for parents. The project was advertised via local media, including radio and newspapers. Parents wishing to participate submitted application forms and were required to provide clear evidence of income at or below the £21,000 threshold at the time of registration. Via the SSCD childcare subsidy project, fees were paid directly to ECEC providers, allowing parents participating to access ECEC provision for their children. The project offered a subsidy locally alongside the nationally subsidized free education places for three and four year old children. The influence on the lives of a small number of mothers whose children have been recipients of both the national free education places and locally subsidized ECEC via the SSCD childcare subsidy project is discussed below.
Research methodology
Within this neoliberal context and ‘the new politics of parenting’, the remainder of this paper considers the influence over time of nationally and locally subsidized ECEC on the employment and domestic strands of a small number of mothers’ lives. This meets a key aim of the research from which data is drawn, which was to explore whether subsidized childcare remediated parental and family poverty and social disadvantage. All the mothers participating in the research were involved as part of the SSCD childcare subsidy project mentioned above and were therefore all in households defined as having an income which was preventing access to local formal ECEC provision when they joined the project. A second aim was to provide a mechanism for bringing the perspectives of these mothers to current policy, practice and academic debates about ECEC; therefore, the findings discussed below are built around the ‘voices’ of the mothers and their narratives. While there is research exploring parents’ ECEC preferences in regard to access (Duncan and Edwards, 1999; Duncan et al., 2004; Ford, 1996; Lawton and Thompson, 2013), there has been limited focus on parents who access ECEC for economic reasons (alongside others) and the influence this has on their careers, their families and for their economic and social inclusion. Indeed, research such as this, exploring ECEC and its links to social justice and equity issues, is needed to fill a gap in this area. This was demonstrated in the inclusion of ECEC as a key theme in the European Union’s (FP7) 7th framework programme of research and development (early childhood education and care and the cost of inequities) (European Commission, 2014: 20). There is a need for research, such as that reported in this article, which can generate new knowledge about measures which attempt to overcome obstacles (including practical, financial and cultural) and widen access to, and participation in, ECEC for relatively low income families while also exploring its implications.
The research was situated within an interpretive paradigm, and therefore was guided by a qualitative inductive logic of inquiry. Theoretically, the mothers’ different careers were considered – the sociological concept of career is being used here to simply denote a strand of somebody’s life (Goffman, 1963). Clearly, an interest in subsidized ECEC and its influence in regard to occupational (employment) career was central to data collection, as this is a major policy aim of subsidized ECEC. But the notion of an interconnected domestic career as a different strand in the life course of the mothers was also considered. This was important because poverty for the mothers and their families was considered in terms of both income but also multiple deprivation connected to their exclusion from wider living standards and conditions (Townsend, 1979). As such, the findings discussed below are organized around consideration of interviewees’ employment and domestic careers.
A multiple case study research design was used (Yin, 2003). This involved non-probability sampling, meaning the selection of individuals to the research was not left to chance. As indicated, all the mothers recruited for the research were purposefully chosen based on their previous involvement in SSCD’s childcare subsidy project. Contacting ‘gatekeepers’ – who were originally local managers of the SSCD childcare subsidy project – it was hoped to find and recruit 10 mothers who had initially been involved in the scheme between 2009 and 2010. Critical case sampling was therefore used in this regard. That is, these mothers were chosen as case studies because they are politically important cases (Patton, 2001). Therefore, even though only four of the 10 came forward to be interviewed, their involvement in the research nevertheless allows for a scrutiny of the longer-term implications of nationally and locally subsidized ECEC, thus providing relevant information in regard to this key policy. There are no hard and fast rules in regard to sample size within qualitative case study research, but as the evidence below testifies, data from the four cases recruited for this research have certainly allowed the authors to refute wider held assumptions and too often taken-for-granted inferences regarding the contribution of ECEC as a means of promoting labour market involvement and social justice. Indeed, the potential for ‘moderatum generalization’ is returned to in the conclusion (Payne and Williams, 2005). Data were collected between August 2012 and February 2013. In-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken with the four groups of parents mentioned above. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. Data from interview transcripts were analysed using qualitative theme analysis. This involved coding and categorizing the narrative data collected. In this way an escalation of insights was achieved as data from interviews was compared, contrasted and organized in a systematic way. Ethical approval was gained from the School of Social Sciences and Law’s research ethics committee at Teesside University. Informed consent was gained from all participants and a guarantee of privacy, confidentiality and anonymity was provided. As such, all names used are pseudonyms. The findings below begin by outlining the implications of subsidized ECEC in regard to the employment careers of the four mothers participating in the research.
ECEC subsidy and labour market participation
As indicated, a central aim of the research was to examine subsidized ECEC as a means to help young mothers access the labour market and move themselves and their families off relatively low incomes towards economic independence. Those mothers participating in the research accessed nationally and locally subsidized ECEC for their children from the time they were two years old until they entered full-time schooling aged five years. But it was found that, despite access to this subsidized ECEC from 2009 onwards, all four mothers and their families experienced on-going economic insecurity. The reasons why were also revealed by interviewees. In particular, two issues emerged – the nature of local labour markets and the way subsidized ECEC is implemented. Kirsty was 25 when interviewed and had two young daughters – one was almost five years old and the other had been born only 10 weeks before the interview. Kirsty was starting her maternity leave for one year. She lived with her 26 year old partner – the father of her children – in social housing. He had recently started a level 3 qualification at college. Kirsty was therefore the main source of income into the household – ‘we just live off my money and tax credits’. She had worked as a nursery nurse for three years and was doing so when her older daughter’s childcare was initially funded via the SSCD childcare subsidy project. Kirsty noted how this was valuable because it had meant she could work more hours.
However, Kirsty’s wages had remained very low: ‘when I’d been working in the nursery, I think it worked out at about £8000 [annually]’. Participation allowed her to work longer hours, but when the local childcare subsidy project came to an end in March 2011 her hours were scaled back. These fluctuated as she was reliant on her mother for informal childcare for her daughter, who then only had the 15 hours of free education. Her mother did not work but she was also caring for Kirsty’s brother, who had cerebral palsy. The childcare support from her mother and how much time she could spare in this respect determined the hours Kirsty worked and her family’s household income. Indeed, Kirsty indicated that it was only the help from her mother which allowed her to work at all: ‘I would have to finish work early, but I don’t think that would fit in with work. I’d probably end up not being able to work there because I couldn’t fit into the hours they need for the nursery’.
Dorothy was a single parent also in relatively low paid but stable long-term employment. Aged 29, she had worked as a dental assistant for almost 14 years with the same employer. She had acquired a degree in dental nursing validated by Newcastle Dental School, doing the course part-time at a local college in County Durham before she had children. At the time of interview she had two children: a boy aged 10 and a daughter aged six. Dorothy had lived in the same home for 10 years. It was rented from a housing association. She had separated from the father of her two children shortly after her daughter was born and before participation in the childcare subsidy project. Dorothy’s involvement in the childcare subsidy project allowed her to claim for childcare costs for her daughter while she was aged two years and attending a private nursery. During all her years as a dental assistant she received the minimum wage and at the time of the interview she indicated how ‘my wage is generally about £600 a month… I get child tax credit, working tax credit, child benefit and my wages… it’s about £1000 a month so it’s about £12,000 a year’. Dorothy noted how over the years she had to ‘manage’ on this low household income. But this was often a ‘struggle’ and Dorothy spoke of how over the last few years she had remained financially dependent on her parents:
A lot of the time, it was a case of new shoes, where were they coming from, let alone the food we were eating. Luckily enough, I had very good parents! Otherwise, I don’t know how I would’ve done it… We were going there and being fed and they were buying the kids shoes and coats, school uniform for my older one.
Mary, a 25 year old mother with one son, lived with her partner in social housing. Her partner was completing a Foundation degree in computing part-time and worked in a fast-food establishment. Mary noted the household income was ‘about £150 where he works a week and then we get £100 tax credits a week and that’s it’. Two months before her interview she had successfully completed a Bachelor’s degree programme at a local university. While at university her son had attended ‘wraparound care’ from 7.30 in the morning until ‘five or six o’clock’ in the evening. Mary and her partner paid for some of this and then the other part was paid via the childcare subsidy project initially and then the free early education allowance after her son reached three years old:
I used to set off from here around half seven to get to uni for nine, so I used to take [her son] down there for them to open at half seven. I’d give him some breakfast, then they’d give him something else to eat later on and he’d stay there with them. I only had [him] in for afternoon sessions at nursery, for the 15 free hours they get, so he got three hours free every day. Because the out-of-hours club and the actual nursery are two separate things, even though they’re in the same place, I used to pay this lady who ran the wraparound, from half seven until twelve o’clock. Then she used to take him into the other room to the nursery where I didn’t have to pay and then from three o’clock, she used to get him again and keep him till I got in from uni at five or six o’clock.
Mary felt the initial support from the childcare subsidy project and then the free early education place had contributed enormously to allowing her to study at university: ‘I wouldn’t have been able to finish my first year, let alone go on to do any other years’. At the time of interview Mary noted how she was ‘looking for work’ and had been to the careers adviser at the university she attended the day before. She admitted there was not much around locally for her and finding work was proving ‘hard’. Such evidence suggested the causes of low income within the local communities where the mothers worked often lie beyond local borders and the subjectivities of the individuals concerned. As such, the potential of ECEC to make a contribution to the employment careers of the young mothers was not situated in a vacuum, but rather it was bounded by structural factors. The sample members were situated in an area of high deprivation. Within the local labour markets there were limited opportunity structures in regard to employment. This lack of opportunity structures existed alongside a local labour market where low paid, insecure and inflexible employment has grown rapidly over recent years (Shildrick et al., 2010). These mothers as individuals all expressed a preference for accessing ECEC as a means to either paid work and/or education and training, but this is a bounded agency. For ECEC to facilitate significant change in the employment careers of these mothers – and other mothers in the local area – there would need to be major socio-economic and political alteration and far greater focus on inequality in regard to structural factors connected to the labour market (Levitas, 2012). For instance, the limited opportunity structures and the working poverty experienced by some of the mothers alongside shrinking incomes in a time of higher living costs would need to be addressed.
Furthermore, the connected issue of implementation of subsidized ECEC was also evident in the responses of interviewees and restricted their efforts to develop further their employment careers. The subsidized ECEC accessed by all four mothers was offered only for a limited number of hours, and as such they continued to find it difficult to balance work and domestic careers. If mothers are interested in working – especially full-time – this is not a solid basis on which to pursue more ambitious plans in regard to their employment careers. Indeed, it has been observed the adult worker model of ECEC ‘usually collapses into a “one and a half model” for couples with children, where the half is normally a mother working part-time’ (Duncan et al., 2004: 247). Laura was a 34 year old who had worked as a part-time nursery nurse since she was 18 years old. She was married to a builder and they had one daughter. Laura had no parents and she was unable to rely on her husband’s family for childcare. Before having her daughter she had worked full-time and after her birth ‘I always wanted to go back to work’. From an early age until she was two years old the daughter attended a private nursery, allowing Laura to work part-time, and initially Laura and her husband paid these fees. But when the family participated in the childcare subsidy project these fees were paid, something which was much appreciated and eased a constant financial worry.
Laura’s daughter eventually got a free education place at a nursery when she was three years old and the SSCD childcare subsidy project came to an end, but Laura noted how she continued having to pay for some provision so she could keep working. This was because she started work earlier than the provision via the private nursery and also she finished a little after lunch so she had to pay for her daughter to stay at the private nursery until she could get there to pick her up. But Laura claimed at this time changes to tax credits eligibility thresholds meant her family lost them as they were just ‘a few hundred pounds too high’. With the income from her husband’s building work fluctuating the family realized they ‘couldn’t afford to do it’ and pay these additional fees and keep their daughter at the private nursery, and the family therefore moved to the scenario where Laura worked part-time, which was cheaper and obviously more convenient for Laura. Her account revealed the difficulties faced in patching together whatever ECEC can be found – even when some is subsidized. Subsidies eased this process to some extent, but they did not facilitate significant change in the employment circumstances of the mothers. This is why there have been calls for universal ECEC provision to be implemented (Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), 2014).
ECEC and its viability beyond the economic
The interviewees’ accounts revealed how the implications of subsidized childcare were more than economic for the mothers interviewed. Rather, in the data mentioned below they perceived benefits for familial relations, ordinary domestic existence, their individual well-being and their children’s development, including the types of factors that are private dimensions within households and individuals’ life courses such as taking holidays and buying shoes. With regard to family relations, currently there is some debate about younger people being inundated by debt, poorer than their parent’s generation and facing a precarious future (Standing, 2011). In addition, transmitted disadvantage and intergenerational cultures of poverty and unemployment feature prominently in the ‘new politics of parenting’ and policy. For instance, within discussion of ECEC’s role in the child poverty agenda in the United Kingdom, the argument is that low income and poverty result from low aspirations and benefit dependency allegedly being passed down in families inter-generationally (DWP and DfE, 2011: 42, but also see pp. 3, 4, 8, 11, 15, 20, 24). However, the data from the interviewees suggested a more positive framing of intergenerational relations. They provided little evidence to support the view that their elder relatives were implicated in causing and perpetuating the low income and child poverty they experienced. Rather, support from parents was essential in ‘managing’ what was termed by Dorothy as the constant ‘struggle’ which living in poverty entailed. She continued to rely heavily on her parents financially. ‘Sometimes I can find it is [a struggle] and at the end of the month, “Dad, can I borrow some money till I get paid?” He is generally quite good and he will’. But referring to her involvement in the childcare subsidy project and the free education place her daughter accessed aged three years old, she observed:
I wasn’t asking my parents for money all the time! It’s definitely helped because we could actually go out for the day. I wasn’t shouting at [the children], ‘You can’t have this or that’. When we went to the shops, they could actually have something. It wasn’t constantly, ‘No, I can’t afford it. No, you can’t have that’.
The accounts of the four mothers interviewed in regard to the causes of economic marginality therefore seemed to be at odds with the explanation put forward by successive UK governments influenced by neoliberal ideology – namely that the causes for marginality lie in the negative behaviours of their families and their own deficient subjectivities. Moreover, in moving beyond economic debate with regard to the value they placed on subsidized ECEC, the responses of the four parents added further credibility to the theory of a ‘rationality mistake’ attached to ECEC policy (Duncan et al., 2004: 247). Essentially, this theory argues there is a disjuncture between successive governments’ supposition about ECEC, with its pre-dominant emphasis on a neoliberal economic rationale and individualized approach, and parents’ views on ECEC and the reasons they value and access it. The latter are more complex and are intersected by ‘moral and socially negotiated views about what behaviour is right and proper, and this varies between particular social groups, neighbourhoods and welfare states’ (Duncan et al., 2004: 247). So, despite continuing low incomes, having access to subsidized ECEC was valued by all four mothers because it allowed for increased lifestyle choice and also participation in what most would consider ‘normal’ activities within families and society.
…we went away for trips and we thought Holly had reflux so we changed her diet and just things like that, extra food and car seats that we bought and shoes and things. We might not have gone to Clark’s for her shoes, just to keep the costs down, but we were able to do that… We went on a little trip to Blackpool, it was nice for her to see the animals, stayed in a caravan. (Laura)
Provision of subsidized childcare is associated by research with a positive work–life balance for mothers, which in turn reduces the risk of depression – especially amongst those parents with pre-school children (Harkness and Skipp, 2013: 9). Certainly subsidized childcare, in relaxing the harsh conditions of choice experienced by interviewees so they could participate more fully in what most of us would consider ordinary family activities, helped in this respect. As Dorothy asked during the interview: ‘without holiday and family time, what have you got?’ As she noted, ‘trying to find the money to pay for the childcare was getting us down’. In this context, provision of subsidized childcare was a ‘weight off the shoulders’. Indeed, the sort of stress that worry about childcare costs can place on families, and individual well-being, was demonstrated most graphically during the interview with Laura. Her interview was stopped for a short while after she became upset when talking about how the worry of childcare costs had acted as a regulating influence in terms of fecundity – ‘we’d like another child, but I really don’t think we could afford childcare’.
It was not the intention of the research to scrutinize the quality of the ECEC which was accessed by the children of the parents involved in the research, but the perception of all those interviewed was that the subsidized ECEC accessed had positive outcomes for their children in regard to development. Mary observed her son was ‘better developed’ and went on to say ‘some of the kids in his class, I can’t really understand them when they talk whereas [her son’s] been in childcare mixing with other kids since he was tiny’. Kirsty’s daughter had speech and language issues connected to an ear problem. Kirsty stated how, through the childcare subsidy project, her daughter attended a school with a speech and language unit. During her time at this setting ‘her speech came on a lot’ and she was ‘really happy’ with ‘good relationships with the staff and other children’. But once the childcare subsidy project ended Kirsty could no longer afford to pay for her daughter to attend this school full-time. It was also a distance from where she lived, and when working she was dependent on her mum picking up her granddaughter, but her mother could not drive and was also caring for Kirsty’s brother, who had cerebral palsy. Kirsty was left with ‘no choice’ but to move her daughter to another nursery. This had caused upset and Kirsty felt, just as participation in the childcare subsidy project had been a positive impact, removal from it had negatively impacted upon her daughter’s well-being:
It was a bit upsetting obviously because of the impact on my daughter having to change schools and it upset her quite a bit having to change schools, more than anything… since she’s moved from [her original school nursery] to [her new school nursery], she was meant to be reviewed in November for her speech but she never got reviewed so I’ve had to go to the hospital about it. Since she’s gone to [her new nursery], she was meant to be reviewed in November but it didn’t happen. I spoke to her teacher a few times about it and she said they were meant to be coming out but they’ve never come out to see her. So we’ve just had to go through the health visitor… She used to have speech cards which she used to do three times a week with her teacher, but since she moved to [the new school], none of that continued.
Conclusions
While this qualitative research focused on the longer-term implications of subsidized ECEC for only a small number of mothers, it connects with an issue of current political, public and academic interest across the whole UK and globally within ‘the new politics of parenting’. The research offers modest evidence to help fill a gap in the knowledge base – the authors are unaware of other empirical studies which have foregrounded and placed a central focus upon the implications of accessing ECEC on mothers’ employment careers over time. As such, ECEC is politically presented as a panacea to tackle social ills including poverty and social exclusion, but such claims remain largely speculative. As noted earlier, the cases involved may be small in number but they are politically important as they include the ‘voice’ of the working poor who are accessing ECEC, the very people the current subsidizing of ECEC is trying to help. These four young mothers were not the ‘shirkers’ and ‘skivers’ often used to inappropriately caricature those on low income and single mothers. Rather, they were keen to support themselves by finding additional work and/or by accessing educational opportunities and were the sort of people who subsidized ECEC would, in theory, help. As such, although small in number, the case studies allow for ‘moderatum generalization’, which is a feature of qualitative research. This means the wider significance of the findings can be explored but in a way which is both modest – i.e. not making sweeping claims which are said to hold good over time – and in a way which is moderately held – i.e. they remain hypothetically held views and open to change as the evidence base is added to by further study in this area (Payne and Williams, 2005).
As indicated, internationally, since the start of the new millennium within a ‘new politics of parenting’, ECEC has emerged from being considered an optional extra to being viewed as essential to addressing several key policy agendas across many developed countries. A neoliberal economic rationale and individualized approach pervades the policy of successive UK governments’ investment in ECEC. From a neoliberal perspective, providing subsidized ECEC for low income parents in theory ‘frees’ them (particularly mothers) to enter the labour market, allowing them to attain economic independence. Subsidized ECEC is a policy measure responding to identified failings in the childcare market which then subsequently place constraint on individual participation in the labour market for economically marginalized parents. As the data here revealed, however, promoting participation in the labour market through current arrangements for subsidized ECEC does not in itself always mean economic marginality will be reduced. Further research would be required to evidence whether the experiences of these four young mothers were representative of a wider pattern. Even if their experiences were shown to be representative, this does not necessarily mean ECEC subsidy lacks viability as a strategy for supporting economically marginalized parents (particularly mothers).
Three important points need to be made in this regard. First, the four mothers were recipients of this ECEC in a local labour market context where restructuring in the last few decades has resulted in an increase in low paid, low-status and insecure work. The potential for ECEC to facilitate economic change for mothers as individuals wishing to pursue such an agenda will be delimited if such structural factors within labour markets and the wider economy are not also addressed. Second, implementation of subsidized ECEC has only involved part-time provision. This is why there have been recent calls for full-time free universal ECEC to be offered if there is going to be an effective attempt to promote maternal entry into the labour market, which will make a significant difference in regard to hours worked and income (IPPR, 2014). Third, although the four mothers remained economically marginalized, it should not be overlooked that their narratives highlighted the viability of subsidized ECEC in addressing aspects of multiple deprivation beyond the low income they experienced. Clearly, the four interviewees felt ECEC subsidy had been invaluable, indeed irreplaceable, as an aspect of their family histories. They all indicated it had been extremely important in regard to their domestic careers. The reason why lies in the ‘rationality mistake’ pervading the neoliberal economic rationale of ECEC policy espoused by government and its disjuncture with the value placed on ECEC by the parents interviewed.
This is an important issue in a context where Elizabeth Truss, the former UK Coalition government’s Education and Childcare Minister, indicated in the House of Commons on 21st January 2013 that the government ‘are not getting value for money’ in regard to ECEC policy (Daily Hansard, 2013). How should the viability of ECEC be determined? The mothers in this study valued ECEC subsidy not because it had resulted in their existence becoming more secure financially, but because within difficult and bounded conditions of choice it provided them with some increased autonomy and greater scope for reaction in strands of their life beyond just their employment careers. Their data allows for a critical analysis of ‘the new politics of parenting’ and it challenges the neoliberal notion that the viability of childcare provision should be assessed in predominantly economic terms. The responses of these four economically marginalized mothers showed how subsidized ECEC meant as citizens they and their families became less detached from the ordinary patterns, customs and activities of society (Townsend, 1979).
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the parents who participated in the research and generously volunteered their time and knowledge
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
References
|
4Children (2014) Making Britain Great for Children and Families: The Childcare Guarantee. London: 4Children. Google Scholar | |
|
Allen, G (2011) Early Intervention: The Next Steps: An Independent Report to Her Majesty’s Government. London: Cabinet Office. Google Scholar | |
|
Bockman, J (2013) Neoliberalism. Contexts: American Sociological Association 12(3): 14–15. Google Scholar | Abstract | |
|
Daily Hansard (2013) 21st January, Column 14. Available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130121/debtext/130121-0001.htm (accessed 29 April 2015). Google Scholar | |
|
Daycare Trust (2007) Childcare Nation? Progress on the Childcare Strategy and Priorities for the Future. London: Daycare Trust. Google Scholar | |
|
Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Education (2011) A New Approach to Child Poverty: Tackling the Causes of Disadvantage and Transforming Families’ Lives. London: DWP and DfE. Google Scholar | |
|
Duncan, S, Edwards, R (1999) Lone Mothers, Paid Work and Gendered Moral Rationalities. London: Macmillan Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Duncan, S, Edwards, R, Reynolds, T. (2004) Mothers and child care policies: Values and theories. Children and Society 18(4): 245–265. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
European Commission (2014) Stock Taking of FP7 Funded Research Activities: Social Sciences and Humanities. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Google Scholar | |
|
Faircloth, C, Hoffman, D, Layne, L (2013) Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship, Self and Politics. Taylor & Francis: London. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Field, F (2010) The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children Becoming Poor Adults. London: Cabinet Office. Google Scholar | |
|
Ford, R (1996) Child Care in the Balance: How Lone Parents Make Decisions about Paid Work. London: Policy Studies Institute. Google Scholar | |
|
Gillies, V (2008) Childrearing, class and the new politics of parenting. Sociology Compass 2(3): 1079–1095. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Ginsburg, N, Jeffers, S, Mooney, G (2012) Editorial. Critical Social Policy 32(3): 297–298. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
|
Goffman, E (1963) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. London: Penguin. Google Scholar | |
|
Great Britain (2006) Childcare Act. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Google Scholar | |
|
Harkness, S, Skipp, A (2013) Lone Mothers, Work and Depression. London: Nuffield Foundation. Google Scholar | |
|
Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) (2014) Childmind the Gap: Reforming Childcare to Support Mothers into Work. London: IPPR. Google Scholar | |
|
Lawton, K, Thompson, S (2013) Tackling In-Work Poverty by Supporting Dual-Earning Families. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Google Scholar | |
|
Levitas, R (2012) Utopia calling: Eradicating child poverty in the United Kingdom and beyond. In: Minujin, A, Nandy, S (eds) Global Child Poverty and Well-Being: Measurement, Concepts, Policy and Action. Bristol: The Policy Press, pp.449–473. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Lewis, J (2002) Family change and family politics in the UK. Journal for the Study of British Cultures 9(2): 209–222. Google Scholar | |
|
Lloyd, E (2013) Childcare markets: An introduction. In: Lloyd, E, Penn, H (eds) Childcare Markets: Can they Deliver an Equitable Service? Bristol: Bristol Policy Press, pp.3–18. Google Scholar | |
|
Lloyd, E, Penn, G (2013) Childcare Markets: Can they Deliver an Equitable Service? Bristol: Bristol Policy Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Montgomery, H (2013) Local Childhoods, Global Issues. Bristol: The Policy Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
OECD (2012) Starting Strong III: A Quality Toolbox for Early Childhood Education and Care. Paris: OECD. Google Scholar | |
|
Patton, MQ (2001) Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (3rd ed). London: Sage Publications. Google Scholar | |
|
Paul, G (2013) Childcare markets and government intervention. In: Lloyd, E, Penn, H (eds) Childcare Markets: Can they Deliver an Equitable Service? Bristol: Bristol Policy Press, pp.227–246. Google Scholar | |
|
Payne, G, Williams, M (2005) Generalization in qualitative research. Sociology 39(2): 295–314. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Shildrick, T, MacDonald, R, Webster, C (2010) The Low-Pay, No-Pay Cycle: Understanding Recurrent Poverty. York: Joseph Rowntree Publishing. Google Scholar | |
|
Standing, G (2011) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury. Google Scholar | |
|
Teather, S (2012) Exclusive: The minister’s view – Let’s help to beat the odds. Nursery World. Available at: www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/rss/1117757/Exclusive-Ministers-View—Lets-help-beat-odds/ (accessed 1 August 2012). Google Scholar | |
|
Townsend, P (1979) Poverty and Deprivation. London: Allen Lane and Penguin. Google Scholar | |
|
Wiggan, J (2012) Telling stories of 21st century welfare: The UK Coalition government and the neo-liberal discourse of worklessness and dependency. Critical Social Policy 32(3): 383–405. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Yin, RK (2003) Case Study Research: Design and Methods (3rd ed). London: Sage Publications. Google Scholar |
Author biographies
Donald Simpson is interested in early education and care and its connection with issues of poverty, social disadvantage and social equity. His current research is exploring pre-school practitioners’ perspectives on child poverty, how these relate to their interactions with parents and children in poverty and the implications for policy and practice. He is collaborating with colleagues in England and the United States of America on this research, which is being supported with grants from both the British Academy and the Society for Educational Studies.
Rose Envy is interested in early years leadership and childhood poverty. She has most recently undertaken research to explore the impact that childcare subsidy has upon parental emotional well-being. She is also in the early stages of completing a cross-national study investigating the influence early years leadership practices have on addressing child poverty within the countries comprising the United Kingdom.
