The Failure to Expand Childcare Provision and to Develop a Comprehensive Childcare Policy in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s

Unlike some of its continental European neighbours, Britain failed to lay down the foundations of a publicly provided childcare system in the 1960s and 1970s, despite the pressure of major structural change in the form of the increasing employment of mothers with young children and strong evidence as to the benefits of early years care and education for child development. By 1980, both nursery education and day nursery care were being increasingly confined to children in deprived areas. The article pays particular attention to the ideas of civil servants and ministers about childcare and shows the extent to which the former were determined to defend the status quo in the context of weak political will. It is argued that the history of childcare during these two decades illustrates the importance of first and foremost the strong assumptions that underpinned belief in the male breadwinner model family, whereby men took primary responsibility for earning and women for care, and second, the British welfare model, focused on poverty and the poor. At the end of the 1970s, demand had so far outstripped supply that reliance on the private and voluntary sectors became inevitable.