“Improvement of burden by free childcare” Request for improvement by single-parent support group November 18, 15:51
In response to the early childhood education and childcare free of charge that started last month, various expenses other than childcare fees have been raised, and the reverse phenomenon that increases the burden has occurred, so the support organization of single parents seeks improvement I submitted a letter to the Cabinet Office.
In September, an organization that supports single parents, “Escle”, conducted an urgent questionnaire survey on the effects of free access for single-parent households nationwide. Among the 103 households that answered, “Total burden increased. 18% of households replied.
It has been pointed out that childcare fees have been raised one after another in kindergartens and daycare facilities, but in cases where the burden has increased this time, childcare fees have been exempted from children who have been exempted from childcare fees. There were cases where the increase in the price of school lunches and extended childcare other than the fee increased as it was, and there were cases where childcare fees were free of charge, but the burden due to other price increases greatly exceeded.
On the 18th, representatives of support organizations visited the Cabinet Office and submitted a petition for improvement. Under these circumstances, there are some unfaithful facilities that raise various costs according to the free of charge and do not give detailed explanations to parents, so we are seeking to strengthen guidance and improve the “reversal phenomenon”.
Tomohiro Imai, the representative of the support group, said, “We want to improve because we are wrinkled with economically difficult homes that originally need support.”
Single mother who increased burden…
A 34-year-old woman living in Saitama Prefecture is a single mother who works with a 4-year-old child in a nursery school. Until now, childcare fees were exempt, so there was no merit in reducing the burden of this free of charge.
On the other hand, the nursery school has raised the cost of meals in line with the gratuitous charge, the “main meal cost” from 500 yen so far to 1000 yen, which means that the burden has increased by 6000 yen annually.
The woman said, “There are not so many when thinking monthly, but when thinking annually, the burden increases greatly, and I think that it has been necessary to cut food expenses at home as much as it has been used for savings. I think that it was a policy that wasn't much different for high-income people and mother-child families and low-income people. "