The government has been told to make “fundamental reforms” of the country’s childcare system if it wants to tempt older workers who are grandparents back into work.
There was a jump of early retirements during the pandemic and the Institute for Employment Studies estimates that there are about 500,000 people aged between 50 and 65 who have taken themselves out of the labour force to look after family, including grandchildren.
“We need pretty fundamental reform on childcare,” Tony Wilson, a director at the institute, told members of the cross-party Commons’ business, energy and industrial strategy committee on Tuesday. “The benefits of improving access to childcare . . . would hopefully be to free up more older people who may want to return to work but
