Paul Hopkins: The true worth of the stay-at-home parent
I'm rewatching the unsurpassable seven-season Mad Men (Netflix) about the embryonic world of advertising on New York City's Madison Avenue in the early 1960s. It's even better than I remember from my first viewing six years ago. There's more than a passing nod to John F Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs attempt to invade Cuba which brought the world close to nuclear war; and then JFK's assassination. The suspicious death of Marilyn Monroe; the Ku Klux Klan and the civil rights movement; the Kinsey Report, the drugs sub-culture, Vietnam, Barbie. The emergence of the serial killer. The Beatles coming to America. Space exploration.
Apart from the incessant smoking by all – in front of children, in bed, and by pregnant women and everyone coughing or, indeed, having cardiac complaints – the series is illuminating in its accurate portrayal of women six decades ago. They were either secretaries (girls) or housewives and mothers.
My own mother back then stayed at home and my father went out each day, clean-shaven and on his bike, and brought home the bacon. In Ireland then, women working in state or semi-state companies, upon marrying had to resign from their job. That was the law.
We night like to think we have come a long way since. And in many ways we have. A lot done, but more to do – in terms of women in politics and in business.
Most couples living together today can't have it all; in the main women – still seen, perhaps unfairly, as the more natural child rearer – who work outside the home because they have a professional career, or those who have to work outside the home if only to help meet the mortgage and, ironically, the exorbitant cost of child-care. And then also predominantly run the house.
Back in the Eighties, despite a decade-long recession, I was lucky enough – because journalists and printers were paid good money back then – to allow for my wife to stay at home for 14 years and primarily rear our three children. She was/is a great mother and her doing so has stood the test of time with my now adult children still talking of the smell of freshly baked fairy cakes upon their arrival home from school.
There are, of course, many mothers today who have a similar privilege. Or, in some cases, fathers.
Most of us, though, underestimate the value of stay-at-home parents. Only 11 per cent of respondents valued the cost to employ someone to perform the duties of a stay-at-home parent at more than €50,000, according to a survey by life insurance and pensions provider Royal London. Its actuaries calculated the estimated annual salary of a stay-at-home parent to be €57,000.
Women are almost three times more likely than men to accurately value stay-at-home parenting, according to the survey conducted by iReach.
The €57,000 estimate of what it would cost to replace a stay-at-home parent is up from €54,500 in 2023, and €40,500 in 2015.
This compares to the average annual earnings for employees in Ireland, which is €44,202 a year or €3,683 a month, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The most recent census data said there were 272,318 stay-at-home parents in 2022. The majority were women, reflecting traditional care-giving roles, according to Census 2022.
Senior propositions executive at Royal London Karen O'Flaherty said: "I believe the role of the stay-at-home parent is greatly appreciated by many people. However, when it comes to gauging their financial 'worth', there remains a significant 43 per cent gap between people's perception of the homemaker's economic contribution and the reality of the likely cost if they had to pay someone to carry out the jobs a homemaker does on a day-to-day basis."
Ms O'Flaherty said stay-at-home parents had a diverse range of responsibilities, including childcare, household management, budgeting, emotional support and handling children's transportation needs. The full value of their work often goes unrecognised.
Almost three in 10 respondents estimated the value of a stay-at-home parent's work to fall between €20,000 and €30,000. Respondents aged 45 to 54 were the most accurate in valuing the role, likely reflecting their own experiences.
The cost of a cleaner was put at €103 a week, with €100 factored in for a teaching assistant.
In the Seventies, then Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald proposed paying stay-at-home mothers £9.50 a week, roughly €45 in today's money – €2,340 a year!
Enough said...