Employed fathers with a child under 10 work an average of 47 hours a week in the United Kingdom compared with 41 in the Netherlands. We have made a good start in helping working parents to spend more time with their children. The European Parental Leave Directive will give parents the right to three months unpaid leave after the birth or adoption of a child and to take time off for urgent family reasons. The Working Time Directive will limit working hours for many people to 48 hours a week. Changing family patterns 1.11.
Many parents prefer their partner, a grandparent or another relative to look after their children.
Only a third of mothers with children under the age of five use professional or registered childcare now, and over half of all working mothers rely on informal care, usually from their partner, for at least some part of their working day. But not all parents can rely on such informal sources of care. Relatives may live a long way away or be in paid employment themselves. In most lone parent families, domestic and childcare responsibilities are carried largely by mothers alone. Without formal childcare, such parents find it hard to enter the labour market or to train to improve their chances of finding work.