Parents ditch work due to inflexible hours

Parents are ditching work after having children due to inflexible working opportunities.

Despite the Employment Act of 2002 introducing legislation to help working parents, 34.6 per cent of parents claim they have had to leave work after having children because of this reason.

The cost of childcare drove 30.7 per cent of parents to quit work and 11.5 per cent struggled to find a suitable provider.

The research comes from FamilyFriendlyWorking.co.uk.

Director  Antonia Chitty says, “This survey indicates that parents are not getting the flexible work that they need. More work is needed to see whether parents are unclear about their rights, whether bosses are saying no, or whether the flexible work available just isn’t flexible enough. The current provision of funding for 2.5-3hours pre school per day can be nigh on impossible to fit in with most employment: the Government needs to look at the way this is delivered and increase the flexibility of ways that parents can use the funding.”