Childcare for All
Childcare: a Gender Equality Issue
For decades, childcare has been top of the list of priorities for the women’s movement, not only because it is vital to facilitating access to the workplace and to accessing training and education opportunities for many women, but also because it is a sector where the majority of employees are women. In 2019, the Childcare for All Campaign, then co-chaired by WRDA and Employers for Childcare, set out a Childcare Charter with its demands for a childcare system that is affordable, accessible, flexible, high quality and which supports children’s education and development.
In 2021, childcare was identified as the number one barrier to economic equality for women, in the Gender Equality Strategy Expert Panel Report. Research by the Women’s Regional Consortium on Women, Skills & Barriers to Work has shown that over half of the women surveyed by the Consortium about the barriers to work they faced said it was due to childcare related issues - 45% said they were out of work because they’re looking after children and 17% said the cost and availability of childcare was the main barrier for them.
This is why, in September 2025, we relaunched the Childcare for All Campaign with a focus on ensuring that the forthcoming Strategy achieved all that we need from our childcare infrastructure. You can read the Childcare Strategy Checklist here and our briefing for MLAs here.
What this means for investment
A key issue facing Northern Ireland is the scant support for childcare. This is both a critical economic as well as social capital and equality issue. Whilst the lack of state investment in childcare particularly affects women, it impacts on all of society including men and children and in turn affects rates of poverty, rural inequality and disadvantage for more vulnerable children.
The lack of a quality care infrastructure contributes to gender inequality and high levels of economic inactivity among women. It also leads to exorbitant charges for childcare and inefficient use of public money. This is in comparison to Britain where parents can access 30 hours of free childcare and to Ireland where childcare has been made much more accessible and affordable through sustained investment in the sector.
It is vital that childcare is seen as an investment providing benefits to our society and to our economy and as a critical piece of our infrastructure not simply a cost to the Executive.
A Draft Strategy on Early Years & Childcare
For all of these reasons, we welcomed a focus on childcare following the restoration of the Assembly in February 2024. Confirmed as an urgent priority in the Programme for Government, we need to see focused action on this issue and support efforts to provide urgent support to parents, children and providers so that Northern Ireland can finally have a high quality and affordable childcare system.
While we welcome the fact that investment in childcare has increased in 2025-26, and that December 2025 saw the publication of a long-awaited draft Early Years & Childcare Strategy. Work is ongoing to analyse the proposals and we will publish a guide to responding in order to encourage maximum engagement shortly.