Free childcare: UK grandparents saving their children billions

More than nine million grandparents provide free childcare in the UK, saving their loved ones a fortune.

The nation’s grandparents save their families £15.7bn every year, according to new research from RIAS, thanks to the free childcare that older people provide for their grandchildren.

The increasing number of families with two working parents has meant more and more families rely on grandparents to step in and help with childcare. A fifth of grandparents reported that they looked after their grandchildren more this year. The main reason given was because their children’s workloads had increased and they were under more pressure to keep their job or get a pay rise.

Around 9.2 million grandparents – that's around two-thirds – now help to look after their grandchildren, up from just 6.1 million in 2009. Given that 91% receive no payment for their day care duties, that saves each family £1,700 a year in childcare costs.

How the value of grandparents has risen

Year	Number of grandparent childminders	Total amount saved in childcare	Annual amount saved per family	Average number of hours per week
2009	6.1m	£5bn	£860	5 hours 18 minutes
2010	7.5m	£12.5bn	£1,650	9 hours 36 minutes
2011	5.8m	£10.7bn	£1,830	10 hours
2012	5.8m	£11bn	£1,888	10 hours
2013	9.8m	£16.4bn	£1,659	8 hours 12 minutes
2014	9.1m	£17.3bn	£1,902	9 hours 6 minutes
2015	9.2m	£15.7bn	£1,700	7 hours and 56 minutes
Increase since 2009	51%	£10.7bn	£840	2 hours and 38 minutes

Source: RIAS

The nation’s grandparents are a generous lot with 60% saying they didn’t expect to be paid to look after their grandchildren, but at the same time they fork out £400 a year on activities to keep the kids entertained. That adds up to a whopping £3.8 billion in total.

There is a limit to what grandparents are prepared to do though. From 2018 parents will be able to share their parental leave after the birth of a child with the grandparents. While 28% of parents said they would consider doing this, only 15% of grandparents would be willing to do it.

“We’ve been tracking the amount of support British grandparents provide their families for the last seven years,” says Mark Hanson, director of marketing at RIAS. “With parents feeling the pressure in the workplace and needing a helping hand around the home, grandparents are proving themselves time and time again, as the family life support network.”

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