Exploring hybrid work and childcare

Dr Naomi Finch, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, University of York

In this blog we introduce an exciting new cross-disciplinary research programme, Effective hybrid work and childcare, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, that will understand how hybrid workers organise childcare, what influences their decisions and the implications of this. It is led by the University of York, in collaboration with charities Coram Family and Childcare and Working Families, and research consultant Ivana La Valle.

The Employment Rights Act was passed on 18th December 2025. Flexible working will become the “default” for all workers from 2027, with employers required to say yes to requests from staff for flexible working from their first day starting in a job unless they can prove it is “unreasonable”. The act strengthens the existing process by making it a legal requirement for employers to state the rationale for not agreeing the request. Since the pandemic, more employees have moved to a hybrid way of working (a form of flexible work where time is split between office and homeworking), which can be combined with temporal flexibility (adjust timing of working hours according to employees need). The underlying assumption is that hybrid (and other flexible) work will improve work-life balance and wellbeing for parents. However, this is not necessarily the case. The pandemic highlighted that homeworking can lead to work-life conflict, low wellbeing and ill-health, with this effect being more pronounced for mothers than fathers. This was likely due to spillover of work into family life in the context of the closure of formal childcare. Whilst formal childcare has reopened, there is emerging evidence that parents working hybridly continue to look after children themselves.

We lack empirical evidence about how hybrid workers organise childcare, what influences their decisions and the implications of this. This new research project will fill these gaps. Using mixed-methods, we will explore current patterns of hybrid work-childcare arrangements, how policy, work and family influence these patterns and which patterns produce positive outcomes. Specifically, we will explore:

● How parents arrange childcare whilst working hybridly, and the gendered effects of this
● What shapes hybrid workers’ childcare decisions, especially around parental care
● Which hybrid work-childcare arrangements translate into work-life balance, high wellbeing and good health for both parents and families in different socio-economic circumstances.

This will include a novel survey with 5,000 working parents in England to compare the work and childcare arrangements of hybrid workers with other fully remote and on-site workers. Importantly, it will also provide an opportunity to understand the influence of the 30 hours funded childcare expansion.

We will publish regular updates here as the programme progresses.

Hybrid work and work-family balance

One of the perceived benefits of hybrid work is that it can enable employment to be organised around childcare, leading to better work-family balance, reduced work-family conflict, and higher wellbeing. Hybrid work can facilitate shared parenting, reducing the need for more formal childcare, for example when one parent starts work late to do the school drop-offs and the other ends work early to do the pick-ups, made possible by reduced ‘travel to work’ time. Hybrid employment, when used alongside flexibility in adjusting working hours,, can enable work hours to be shifted to meet (unpredictable) childcare needs – such as when children are ill – or to work around formal childcare hours that do not fit with working time. It can also allow work and childcare to be undertaken simultaneously, so parents can work at home when they need to without having to reduce working hours or pay.

There is emerging evidence that hybrid workers are using this flexibility to undertake childcare themselves whilst working from home, with reduced reliance on formal childcare. The Department for Education 2024 Childcare and Early Years survey of parents shows a post-pandemic decline in take up of formal childcare, especially for school-aged children. Formal use of childcare for 5-14 year olds had increased from 2014 then remained fairly stable until the pandemic, after which there has been a decline that has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. This has also not been replaced with informal childcare, which has also experienced a decline, suggesting that – post pandemic – school age children are more likely to be looked after by their parents at home.

For pre-school children, headline figures for formal childcare suggest a post-covid dip that has recovered, although, the proportions using informal childcare has declined. Nevertheless, post-pandemic there are concerns amongst providers and local authorities about take-up of childcare, especially with childminders, mainly in relation to a decline in hours, which they are concerned may continue. Providers reported that more parents were seeking part-time rather than full-time hours, had less demand for early bird, after school or wraparound places and a fall-off in parents topping up publicly funded hours. These kinds of post-pandemic changes will however be hidden from the DFE survey statistics that show only overall take-up of childcare, and we don’t have firm evidence of how hybrid work has affected parental and formal childcare use across England. Our project will explore how far parents working hybridly are looking after children themselves and how this is balanced with other forms of childcare – and different combinations of home versus office work.

Why are parents looking after children themselves whilst working?

An important question for the project is addressing the underlying reason why parents, especially mothers, are looking after children themselves whilst working. There is some evidence that European countries with the highest level of remote work also have the highest childcare costs. In the context of the cost-of-living crises, high childcare costs are therefore likely to impact childcare decisions of hybrid working parents to look after children themselves. A recent report by Remote about working parents highlighted how return to office mandates are particularly concerning for parents, with 73% of working parents fearing that their childcare costs would go up further if they were required to work more days in the office. In England, there has been a recent expansion of 30 hours funded childcare to all working families with children from 9 months old which began September 2025 (September 2024 for two-year-olds), which is anticipated to impact parental hybrid work and childcare decisions. But there are limitations to this policy not least because it only covers 30 hours for 38 weeks of the year, and offers no reduction for primary school children. There may also be other reasons why parents are less inclined to take up more formal childcare such as practicalities, flexibility or lack of suitable care (especially for children with SEND). The project will examine how far the 30 hours expansion and other constraints have influenced hybrid workers childcare arrangements – teasing out the impact of constraints versus preferences.

Why do childcare arrangements matter for hybrid working parents?

The Employment Act did not include the “right to switch off” like some other countries (Ireland, for example), meaning employees do not have the legal right to disengage from work outside of normal working hours. Whilst some hybrid workers will experience the benefits of working at home, others may experience blurred boundaries and work-family conflict. Parents looking after children during the 9-5 day may move work to evening and weekends to make up for this. Evidence suggests that, in the context of gender role norms, it is more likely that mothers will use hybrid work to undertake childcare, and less likely to successfully place boundaries between work and childcare whilst working at home. Whilst hybrid work may facilitate female labour (and household income) and reduce the need for expensive formal childcare, there is also the risk it will overburden mothers, leading to higher work-family conflict and lower wellbeing. This may be especially the case for mothers in lower-income occupations, who evidence has shown are more likely to take on most of the responsibility for childcare. This project will examine how different combinations of working at home and in the office, and different childcare arrangements, including parental care, impact on work-family balance and wellbeing for mothers and fathers in different socio-economic circumstances.

Dr Naomi Finch.

Find out more about the hybrid work and childcare research programme here.