The financial worth of a stay-at-home parent is undervalued at €20,000 – €30,000
In recent years soaring childcare costs has meant the role of the stay-at-home parent, be it a mother or father, is now acknowledged and appreciated more than it’s ever been. But experts at leading protection specialist Royal London say that 62% of people undervalue the cost of replacing a stay-at-home parent and employing someone to take on their workload.
Royal London asked 1,000 men and women of all ages throughout the country how much, in monetary value, they believe that a stay-at-home parent is worth.
Respondents to the survey were asked: Some studies have estimated the potential ‘salary’ of the stay-at-home parent – how much do you believe it would cost to employ someone to perform the duties of a stay-at-home parent?
- €10,000 per year (9%)
- €20,000 per year (28%)
- €30,000 per year (34%)
- €40,000 per year (16%)
- More than €50,000 per year (13%)
Reporting on the findings, Joe Charles from Royal London said, “While it seems many people recognise the very hard work that stay-at-home parents carry out, our survey reveals that they underestimate its value, in terms of the associated cost. The majority (71%) of respondents believe the cost of the stay-at-home parent amounts to €30,000 or less. However, we have used some general pay estimates to calculate that the cost would be somewhere around the €42,000 mark”.
Royal London considered the duties of a stay-at-home parent and estimated the cost of replacing the jobs they do for the family and in the home. They included some of the ‘top jobs’ parents carry out on a weekly basis such as cooking, cleaning, driving children to their various activities and so on, and the average work-place costs associated with these duties. The calculations revealed that the cost to employ someone to do the household jobs normally done by a stay-at-home parent would be at least €42,000 or more. This is over a third more than what the majority of the Irish public think it costs. 29% of respondents said they thought it would be €40,000 or higher.
Previously published CSO figures showed that the number of people that class their economic status as ‘looking after home/family’ has been declining steadily. In 1986 there were 653,843 people in this category whereas in 2011 there were 339,918 who fell into this group. Of the 339,918 people, it’s estimated that at least 230,000 have children. The number of women working in the home is also down, from 653,398 in 1986 to 321,878 in 2011. However, the number of men who ‘look after the home’ full-time has risen steadily from 445 in 1986 to 18,040 in 2011.