Those without qualifications were much less likely to 'float' off benefits. They also found that whilst Family Credit benefit, which tops up low wages, had a positive effect on the employment of lone mothers' with school age children it did little in the long run to improve income. The reason for this lies in the fact that in-work benefits encouraged mothers to enter and remain in low paid jobs for long periods. Once in low-wage work a lack of further training completed the trap. What this shows is that whilst childcare is an important policy in allowing mothers to work, unless it is combined with training, and a minimum wage policy it is unlikely to have an immediate impact on family poverty, and may simply replace benefit poverty with earned poverty.
Affordable childcare is very difficult to find for working mothers.
It results in almost half of working mothers relying on unregulated informal childcare. Government funded initiatives, such as the Out of School Childcare Initiative between 1992 and 1996, have tended to support the development of a mixed economy of childcare services with a growing private and independent sector, accessible to parents on the basis of ability to pay and on where you live. The lack of affordable, accessible and high quality childcare has increasingly become an issue in the 1990s, as mothers have returned to the labour market. Employers have begun to identify 'the business case' for childcare. 11 Regeneration Agencies are increasingly likely to identify childcare as a key part of the local social and economic infrastructure.