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The average cost of daycare in Sydney is around $180 per day. If you have a child in care 4 days a week, that’s more than $33k a year on daycare before the subsidy. For one child. And that’s if you can even access it, which is an increasing issue in regional areas of Australia where there are childcare deserts, but also in major cities where people are registering their kids before they are even born.
Add to that, the motherhood penalty means women face a career and income hit for a decade after they have children. Women in Australia reduce their workforce participation when they have kids, and often never catch up to our global peers. To quote advocacy group, The Parenthood, “While the motherhood penalty persists everywhere, among developed countries few have done as little as Australia to tackle it.”
This episode is with Georgie Dent, CEO of The Parenthood, Australia’s leading parent advocacy organisation representing over 80,000 parents, carers and supporters. Georgie is funny, opinionated, passionate and incredibly smart, and I hope you enjoy this conversation!
In this episode we discuss:
- The Parenthood’s role as an advocacy group, giving parents a collective voice in a system where they are at the whim of policies
- Their mission, for Australia to be the best place in the world to raise a family
- How COVID highlighted that childcare is an essential service
- Wins this year – an increase to paid parental leave, superannuation payments on PPL, a wage increase for early childhood educators
- The rhetoric of supporting working families vs the very challenging reality of working, raising children, and finding affordable, quality care
- In countries where both parents take paid parental leave there is higher mental wellbeing for all
- 24% of Australia is in a childcare desert
- Georgie’s own experience as a working mother facing these policy challenges
- Australia has a default view that the men are at work and the women do the childcare
- In Georgie’s ideal world, men and women would move between home and work more equitably
About Georgie Dent
Georgie Dent is the CEO of The Parenthood, Australia’s leading parent advocacy organisation representing over 80,000 parents, carers and supporters. She is a best-selling author, former lawyer and prominent advocate for children, families, gender equity and mental health. The Parenthood champions paid parental leave, access to quality early childhood education and care and family-friendly workplaces. She is a mum of three and lives in Sydney with her husband & co-partner in chaos.