Introduction

The Labour government in the UK aims to increase the lone parent employment rate to 70% by 2010. To help achieve this aim, a state subsidy for childcare through Tax Credits has been introduced. However, the subsidy has been restricted to formal childcare, despite evidence that the majority of lone parents use informal care, are more likely to rely solely on this form of care than couple families, and that deficiencies in formal childcare provision in relation to quality, suitability and affordability still act as a significant barrier to lone parents’ employment.

This chapter investigates the potential of a state subsidy for informal childcare. Utilising evidence from a study of 78 qualitative in-depth interviews and eight focus groups with lone parents, it explores preferences for informal care and how such care is negotiated in families. The study found that lone parents held deeply embedded preferences for informal childcare based on trust, commitment, shared understandings and children's happiness. It is important, therefore, for government to support informal as well as formal care. However, the evidence also shows that the way informal childcare was negotiated involved complex notions of obligation, duty and reciprocity, suggesting that a subsidy could potentially intrude upon private family relationships. Yet, on closer examination, we found that care was negotiated differently depending on who was providing it, with lone parents tending to favour paying for childcare provided by other family members and friends than by grandparents. This has implications for the state childcare subsidy, and this chapter seeks to cast light on the potential complexities by relating the findings to theoretical explanations on how negotiations between kin work.

Background

A variety of labour market policies have been introduced by the Labour government that focus on increasing lone parents’ employment rates. These include financial incentives via Working Tax Credits, practical help via the New Deal for Lone Parents and a National Childcare Strategy that aims to expand formal childcare provision and improve quality, suitability and affordability. These measures have been introduced with the understanding that structural factors are the main inhibitors of lone parents’ employment. Significant progress has been made, with 55% of lone parents in employment in 2005, an increase of nine percentage points since 1997 (HM Treasury, 2005b).