High childcare costs are putting British mothers off going out to work. It really is that simple. Eurostat figures show that 66 per cent of mothers in the UK work, less than France (72 per cent), Denmark (86 per cent), the Netherlands (78 per cent) or Germany (69 per cent). This not only damages Britain’s economic prosperity—it limits women’s careers and squeezes family incomes. It would be fine if this is the choice parents want to make, but it isn’t. Half of those surveyed want to go to work and the expense of childcare is one of the key reasons they couldn’t.
Despite claims made by Labour (工党) about childcare, a forthcoming (即将到来的) report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) confirms the true legacy of their time in government. They left behind a childcare system with high costs to parents, variable quality and patchy (不均匀的) coverage, despite soaring government spending. British parents now face the highest childcare bills in the world after Switzerland.
In the Eighties and Nineties under Mrs Thatcher and John Major, the picture was very different. Mothers in England were more likely to go out to work than their Dutch or German counterparts. But the position has reversed, despite a huge rise in public spending.
So why does the British Government spend more on childcare than France or Germany, even though the costs given to parents are sky-high? As always, under the previous government, money was frittered away (浪费) without adequate focus on improving quality. Instead of clear and transparent funding, four separate funding streams were created, skewing (偏离) the market and confusing parents and providers alike. The majority of the money was given away in cash benefits; so much of it did not get through to the front line.
The IPPR report points out that continental systems, in countries such as Germany, France, Denmark and the Netherlands, manage to deliver better value for money. What all of these systems have in common is a focus on quality, with greater flexibility and autonomy given to local providers. They also see a much higher proportion of government money getting to the front line.
小题1:Which of the following doesn’t belong to the disadvantages caused by the mothers prevented from going to work?
A．Damaging Britain’s economic development.
B．Causing damage to women’s careers.
C．Decreasing the family incomes.
D．Causing childcare costs to go up.小题2:According to the second paragraph, we can infer that the former government of the Labour Party _______.
A．was highly praised by British people
B．made British people face the highest childcare bills
C．left behind a childcare system full of problems
D．managed to decrease the government spending小题3:We can learn from the passage that _______.
A．in the Eighties and Nineties, mothers in the UK were likely to work
B．there is a prejudice against mothers in the UK employment market
C．most of the mothers surveyed in the UK don’t want to work
D．the percentage of mothers who work in the UK is the lowest in the world
