While it seems many people recognise the very hard work that stay-at-home parents carry out, a recent survey reveals that they underestimate its value, in terms of the associated cost.
Experts at leading protection specialist Royal London, say that 62% of people undervalue the cost of replacing a stay-at-home parent and employing someone to take on their workload.
Royal London asked 1,000 men and women of all ages throughout the country how much, in monetary value, they believe that a stay-at-home parent is worth?
Reporting on the findings, Joe Charles from Royal London said the majority (71%) of respondents believe the cost of the stay-at-home parent amounts to €30,000 or less. “However, we have used some general pay estimates to calculate that the cost would be somewhere around the €42,000 mark”.
Royal London considered the duties of a stay-at-home parent and estimated the cost of replacing the jobs they do for the family and in the home. They included some of the ‘top jobs’ parents carry out on a weekly basis such as cooking, cleaning, driving children to their various activities and so on, and the average work-place costs associated with these duties.
The calculations reveal that the cost to employ someone to do the household jobs normally done by a stay-at-home parent would be at least €42,000 or more. This is over a third more than what the majority of the Irish public think it costs.
Encouragingly however, 29% of respondents said they thought it would be €40,000 or higher.
