Pressure is mounting on parents thanks to the coronavirus lockdown – they need more support

It’s time to value the unpaid care that’s keeping families and the country afloat in this crisis

The coronavirus outbreak is affecting our lives in every corner of the UK, with social distancing measures creating new common experiences, anxieties and challenges wherever we live, whatever our age, and regardless of our income. But different families will be affected very differently by the disruption to our day-to-day lives.

For families with children at home, the seemingly endless stretch of days ahead thanks to Covid-19 looks quite different from those with only grown-up chaos to contend with.

This pandemic has sparked a childcare crisis for some 3.9 million UK working parents, stuck between the closure of formal childcare and the abrupt withdrawal of informal care provided by grandparents, friends or other relatives. With the wider family and community networks parents draw on to muddle through weekends or school holidays now out of reach, families are having to go it alone.

For those fortunate enough to be able to work from home, this means more than the risk of a child or two making an unexpected entrance during a crucial work call. Parents are navigating a total redesign of working patterns while trying to care for children who are more likely to be anxious, unwell or fed-up with new restrictions.

For lone parents, children with disabilities or special educational needs, and families with parents who are unwell or self-isolating, the demands of life under lockdown are even greater.

As we all adapt to our new, mostly home-bound way of life, care work has become far more visible and tangible to those who don’t regularly shoulder the responsibility. This emergency has exposed childcare for what it is: essential social infrastructure, without which paid work can’t be sustained and large parts of our economy can’t function.

Just last week, IPPR’s Children of the Pandemic report made the case for a right to paid leave for parents and other full-time carers for the duration of this crisis, as an extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme. On Saturday, the government responded with new guidance that will enable employees with caring responsibilities to be furloughed under the scheme. This welcome move will ease pressure on parents and carers facing impossible choices between keeping their finances afloat and caring for their children.

But support needs to go further still. We need to see stronger protections to ensure parents and carers are not left at the mercy of an unsympathetic employer: employees with caring responsibilities should have the right to be furloughed for as long as schools and childcare providers stay closed.

Government support should also be available on a part-time basis, so people have the option to reduce their hours without stopping work completely or to share care with a partner.

This must be coupled with immediate action to strengthen our threadbare social safety net. IPPR and today the TUC, among others, have made the case for raising universal credit payments, ending the benefit cap and getting cash into the pockets of families with children through child benefit.

Pressure on parents is already mounting, and most of it will be falling on women, who are far more likely to be the primary carers, to be the lower earners in two-parent heterosexual families, or to be lone parents. We know the division of unpaid care is both a cause and a consequence of women’s inequality. Supporting carers to stay in work will be critical to ensuring we don’t emerge from this crisis to find fragile progress towards a more gender-equal world rowed back again.

And as we approach a deep recession and observe a disturbing rise in reported instances of domestic abuse, it’s all the more vital that women aren’t pushed out of the workforce over the coming months, costing them not just their jobs but their financial independence.

For many children and families, remaining connected online will be a lifeline through this pandemic. As teaching goes digital, access to the internet and the devices to learn online is essential for children who would usually be in school. But more than a third of 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK live in mobile phone-only homes, without a computer or tablet through which to access digital learning resources. Without access to devices or a reliable broadband connection at home, lower-income children could fall behind their peers, with potential knock-on effects spilling far into their futures.

To make sure online learning is within reach for every young person, we need to prioritise digital access for all: working with technology companies to donate or loan devices, and establishing an emergency Digital Education Access Fund so we don’t see inequality exacerbated for a generation of young people.

In a moment when we’re rightfully celebrating the phenomenal work of carers across the country, it’s time to make the unpaid care that’s keeping families and the country afloat in this crisis visible and valued too.

Rachel Statham is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank