The value of stay-at-home parents’ work is constantly being underestimated.
However, some brand new research from the UK has shed some light on just how much money it would cost to replace the work done by mothers and fathers who stay at home with their children. And that sum, believe it or not, is an estimated €48,904.
Yep, you read that right.
Close to €49.000.
The survey, which was conducted by Royal London, polled 1.000 people, and found that while 42 percent of people have a greater appreciation for the role of stay-at-home parents following the lockdowns, 85 percent grossly underestimated their “monetary value”.
What more, the study revealed that the annual cost to employ someone to do the household jobs done by a stay-at-home parent would be an estimated €48,904. This includes childcare, cooking, cleaning, driving children to activities, gardening, teaching, and DIY.
The biggest wage cost is childcare at €352 a week for 30 hours’ work, at an average hourly cost of €11.74. Taxi driving at an estimated average fare of €21 and 10 trips would cost €210 a week.
Cleaning would cost €84, cooking €157, teaching €60 and handyman or woman jobs €62. Gardening was the cheapest cost at one hour a week for €14.
Interim Head of Proposition at Royal London Karen Gallagher said for people with children in particular, the new Monday to Friday routine has been a whole new world, particularly during the periods when no outside childcare was permitted.
“These people may well have developed a deeper understanding of the range of jobs involved in being a stay-at-home mam or dad,” Gallagher said.
“So it is perhaps unsurprising that more than four in 10 people appreciate the role of the stay-at-home parent to a greater degree. Virtually none of our survey participants think less of the role now.”
An estimated 454,700 people defined their main role as looking after the home or family in the last census. Unsurprisingly, some 98 percent of these were women.
However, the research showed that the number of men in this role had almost doubled in the previous 10 years from 4,900 to 9,200.
Gallagher explained that while 19 percent of women believed the cost of a stay-at-home parent would be more than €40,000, just 12 percent of men and 4 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds felt the same.
