Almost 17,000 more people are not working across Australia because they are caring for children at home due to the cost of childcare, as fees continue to rise beyond the rate of inflation.
The latest data released by the Productivity Commission shows childcare fees rose by 5.6 per cent to a national median of $523 between 2019 and 2020. The biggest increases were in the ACT, Victoria and NSW.
ACT parents paid $595 for a child to attend 50 hours of centre-based care per week in 2020, while Victorians paid $546 and NSW parents paid $535.
Over the same period nationally, the number of people who were not in the workforce because they were caring for children grew from 279,200 to 296,100, and the number of people who cited the cost of childcare as the reason for that increased by 23 per cent.
