Rate my nursery to take part in international study

Rate my nursery asked to take part in a study.

Rate my nursery working in partnership with manchester university are conducting a study into working parents child care.

Wanted: Working parents with children aged 0-12 for an online survey

Are you a working parent with children aged 0- 12 ? You are invited to take part in an online survey conducted by the University of Manchester. We are studying how working mothers and fathers organize child-care, an increasingly pressing issue in a 24-hour economy where more and more parents have to work flexible hours or evenings, nights and weekends.

What kind of questions is the survey asking?

Filling in the survey will take about 20-30 minutes. All answers will be anonymous.

You can access the survey questionnaire through our project website www.manchester.ac.uk/families24-7

We are ivolved in a international project Children's socio-emotional wellbeing    

 and daily family life in a 24-hour economy, studying how parents in the UK,

Finland and the Netherlands combine working life and chld-care resposibilites.

This issue is, as we all know, of great importance in the UK where mothers are

increasingly taking up paid work and where there are increasing demands on 

employees to work flexible hours.

We aim to recruit 500 parents working non-standard hours and 200 parents

parents working standard hours across the UK to take part in the online survey

that remains open untill 20 December 2012.

The focus of the survey is on how working parents organize child care, and how 

their working hours affect thier family life.We are also asking about what parents 

pay for child care and how they feel about this cost. It is improtant to gain 

comparable information about the impact that contemperary working conditions

have on family life in different countries we would graetly appreciate your help 

with this matter.

 This cross-national comparitve study is funded by the Academy of Finland, and

is conducted in co-operationbetwwen the University of Manchester and JAMK

University of Applied Sciences  the National Institute for health and Welfare

in Finland, and the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

The survey will remain open until 20 December 2012 

For more information visit at

 www.manchester.ac.uk/families24-7                                                                          

.

Danish nursery offers parents time for making babies

Danish nursery offers parents time for making babies

A group of nursery workers in central Denmark have made parents an offer that they might find hard to refuse.

They have promised to provide two hours' free childcare on Thursday evening, so that the parents can go to bed and make more babies.

Dorte Nyman of the Grasshoppers kindergarten in North Fyn said a lack of young children meant the future of local nurseries was uncertain.

She expected nearly half of the nursery's families to accept the offer.

"We have 42 children in the kindergarten, and we'll be looking after 20 tonight," she told the BBC.

Not all, though, are likely to use their free time for the intended purpose.

"Lots say: 'We'll bring our children to the party but you won't be getting any more children out of us!'" she said.

'A chance to speak'

Ms Nyman said she would be laying on food and playing music and holding a party for the children.

If any of them ask what the party is for, "we'll tell them it's to give the parents a chance to speak at home", she says.

Six other kindergartens in the area are also offering the same service, for one night only - though Ms Nyman said if their plan was successful, they would be happy to do it all over again.

The nursery workers want to draw attention to the dwindling number of births and to do something about it.

In terms of birth rate, Denmark languishes at 185th out of 221 countries in the world, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Copenhagen.

If the increasingly older population continues to expand, Denmark will not be able to support pensioners and others dependent on state benefits, he says.

Ms Nyman said as well as the low birth rate, nurseries were also facing a cut in their funding from local government.

"Without money we can't look after the children well, and if there aren't enough children, there are not enough jobs for our workers."