Scottish Household Survey 2020 - telephone survey: key findings

Section ten - Childcare

The results of the SHS 2020 telephone survey are not directly comparable to SHS results for previous years. Please see Introduction for more detail.

The following results relate to childcare use by households who have a child aged between two and five years that is not yet at school. They cover childcare use relating to only one randomly selected pre-school child between two and five years old, not for all children in the household.

79% of households with a pre-school child aged 2 to 5 used childcare for that child (Table 10.1).

The most common reason for using childcare, for a pre-school child aged 2 to 5, was to enable the child’s parent/carer (or their partner) to work (Table 10.4).

The following results relate to the amount spent on childcare by households with a child aged between two and five years not yet at school. They do not cover all childcare costs for the household, as they include costs for only one randomly selected pre-school child between two and five years old.

60% of households with a child aged 2 to 5 not yet at school who used childcare did not spend any of their income on childcare for that child during school term-time (Table 10.13). This was because the childcare was free or paid for by the local council or Scottish Government. 29% spent less than 10% of their income on childcare, and 9% spent less than 20% of their income on childcare.

61% of households with children aged 0 to 11 years said that it was easy or very easy to afford childcare (Table 10.16).