On average 3.70 euros per child welcomed: this is the average net hourly wage paid by parents to childminders in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to the latest data released by the Observatory of family jobs, this July 7. A figure up 2% year on year.
This average salary varies by around 45% between the cheapest and most expensive departments – from 3.10 euros in Sarthe and Orne to 4.50 euros in Haute-Corse and Reunion. In total, it exceeds 4 euros in fifteen other departments (including Hauts-de-Seine, Bouches-du-Rhône, Guyana, Corse-du-Sud, etc.). Paris is in the middle of the range, at 3.80 euros.
“It is the game of supply and demand that mainly explains the significant disparities between the territories, the reception offer is very unequally distributed and there are strong tensions locally”, details Isabelle Puech, the director of the observatory, which comes under the Federation of Individual Employers of France (Fepem). The figures are based on salary data transmitted by the Urssaf national fund. “The childminder is the first mode of reception of young children kept outside the family”specifies Isabelle Puech, indicating that around 966,000 parents use it.
As for the net hourly wage for childcare at home (in the parents’ home), another possible individual childcare method, it amounted on average, in the last quarter of 2021, to 9.70 euros net, up by 2 .20% over one year. The differences between the departments are smaller, from 8.60 euros in Creuse to 10.20 euros in Haute-Savoie. According to Fepem, approximately 123,000 parents use this option.
Two financial logics
Be careful, even if in both cases, the salary is negotiable between the two parties, employee and employer, these two types of childcare work, financially, in a very different way, which can make comparisons complex for parents.
The net hourly wage of the childminder cannot be less than a minimum (that is, since 1er July 2022, 3.06 euros gross, and 3.18 euros if the professional has the professional title “maternal childcare assistant”), which depends on legal provisions and the collective agreement. It must be supplemented by the parents with other elements of remuneration: paid leave, a compulsory maintenance allowance (at least 3.47 euros per child for a nine-hour day, to cover in particular the consumption of water and energy, materials), often meal costs, etc. Everything is understood per entrusted child.
In general, parents do not pay social security contributions for their childminder. They may benefit, for each child under the age of six thus cared for, from the additional free choice of childcare (CMG), paid by the family allowance funds; its amount varies according to the child’s age and household resources. Other financial aid granted: a tax credit of 50% of the expense (CMG deducted), capped at 1,150 euros per child.
Parents using childcare at home, often called “home nanny”, must, for their part, pay their employee a basic hourly wage higher than the minimum wage – 10.88 euros gross since 1er July – regardless of the number of children cared for. However, the cost can be divided between two families in the context of “shared custody”. Added to this is the payment of part of the transport costs and part of the contributions and social contributions linked to the salary of their employee.
60%
This is the proportion of childcare providers at home who say that their salary was set by negotiation with their employer, while 20% of those caring for children at home say they have set their salary themselves, and that the 20% remaining say that it was the parents who decided, according to an online survey conducted in May 2022 by the Observatory of home employment, on the attractiveness of home-based jobs.
Here too, parents can receive a CMG (one per family, even if two children are cared for by the nanny) and benefit from a tax credit 50% of the remaining dependents, capped here at 7,500 euros from two dependent children (9,000 euros for the first year during which a home-based employee is employed).
Increase in childcare costs to be expected
If they can give an idea, a reference, to parents currently looking for childcare for the start of the school year, these average salary amounts recorded in the last quarter of 2021 will not be those practiced at the start of the school year, new revaluations of minimum wage grids have indeed been negotiated since, in February and May 2022, due in particular to increases in the minimum wage, linked to inflation (the last revaluation to be applied soon), explains Fepem.
The federation also anticipates, for the months and years to come, increases in the cost of childcare for parents linked to increases in energy and food prices, but above all, more structurally, to a lack of professionals.
“I fear strong tensions on the market, we are entering the shortage of childminders that we have been announcing for some time, it is already evident in the west of the country”laments Marie-Béatrice Levaux, president of Fepem. “By 2030, 44% of those in practice will be of retirement age. It is thus nearly 125,870 professionals who will have to be replaced to maintain an individual reception capacity for young children identical to that of today. »
To facilitate recruitment, she continues, “In particular, we have to adapt to the demands of new generations of professionals, who, for example, have less desire to work at home and more desire to evolve as a team, which is possible within the framework of childminders’ homes”.
She warns: “All of these elements will increase the remaining charge for parents, unless the government decides to revalue the CMG, to rebalance it in relation to the aid granted to parents of children kept in crèches. [directement incluse dans le tarif de la crèche et fonction des ressources de la famille]. »