ii comments on ONS analysis on division of labour, work life balance and homeschooling

The ONS has analysed how parents in Great Britain who were able to work, changed their routines to accommodate their new childcare commitments, prompted by the coronavirus.

• interactive investor is running new Family Financial Education Award competition for parents/ carers who have best taught children about money matters – with a £5,000 prize pot

The Office for National Statistics has today revealed analysis of how parents in Great Britain who were able to work, changed their routines to accommodate their new childcare commitments, prompted by the coronavirus.

Highlights include:

• For working parents with school-aged children that said their work had been affected by the coronavirus, 20% said this disruption was at least in part because of having to work around childcare responsibilities. 
• During the first weeks of lockdown (28 March to 26 April 2020), in households with children aged under 18 years, women were carrying out on average two-thirds more of the childcare duties per day than men.
• But when it came to paid work, men contributed an average of more than 45 minutes more per day than women, amounting to 2 hours and 56 minutes, compared with 2 hours and 9 minutes.

Myron Jobson, Personal Finance Campaigner, interactive investor, says: “Learning has always been a joint effort of teachers and parents but the latter have had to get more hands on with learning than ever before during the coronavirus lockdown, while juggling work responsibilities – a tricky task which I can vouch for personally having co parented a pre-schooler through this. The school holidays will offer some reprieve, but the challenge of keeping the children occupied during the pandemic remains.

“We often hear about the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic in the news - which can be unsettling for children. So demystifying money can be very important and help children develop a healthy relationship with personal finance. There are plenty of fun ways to help kids get to grips with money – within or outside term time. The summer holidays are a great way to teach kids the value of money. With kids out of school and more parents on holiday, there’s a lot more immediate gratification to be had – and kids need to be able to differentiate between what they need and what they want. 

“For rainy days, Monopoly, is great for learning about money and cashflow and an everyday trip to the supermarket (or ice cream!) is a great place to discuss the cost of things and learn about the value of money for younger children.”

In recognition of the ‘new normal’, with parents and carers now having to take a lead in educating their children, interactive investor has launched a ‘Family Financial Education Award’, with a prize pot of up to £5,000 for parents and carers who have best educated their children about money matters. 

Parents/ carers just need to submit their lesson planning and/ or examples of the children’s work/ a supporting statement, to editorial@ii.co.uk.

interactive investor is also running the Personal Finance Teacher of The Year Awards competition. The prize pot is £24,000, and last year there were prizes for primary and secondary schools, and a separate ‘judges award.’

Students and carers can email Teacher@ii.co.uk, and teachers can also nominate themselves.

The deadline for nominations for the both interactive investor Personal Finance Teacher of the Year Awards and Family Financial Education Awards is until September 2020 (see terms and conditions).