Why Is Profit In Childcare Still Seen As Wrong?

A recent airing of Dragon’s Den featured young woman who had suffered from severe ME had used some accupressure ‘ear seeds’ which transformed her health. She started selling them for £30 a set, and the cost to her was £3. The Dragons were hugely impressed at her 900% margin. The comments were enthusiastic, congratulatory, and full of ‘go-girl’ sisterhood.

So WHY is it so repugnant that one sector dominated by women should make any money at all?

Welcome to the early years sector, where women have risked not just £3 on importing some ear seeds (which we’re sure are excellent), but often MILLIONS on buildings, regulatory burdens and staff costs; where your business can be ruined and you can lose everything with one accident, or a bad day when OFSTED come calling.

The difference is largely emotional framing, visibility, and who people think is ‘deserving’ of profit.

When someone creates a wellness product, skincare line, supplement, fitness programme, or lifestyle brand, the public often sees innovation, entrepreneurship, personal risk, branding skill and voluntary consumer choice.
If they achieve a huge markup, it is often reframed as ‘smart business’, especially if the product makes people feel happier, healthier, prettier, calmer, or more confident.
But early years is viewed very differently, because it sits in a strange psychological space between public service, motherhood/caregiving, education and safeguarding. It’s also seen through a lens of women’s labour and state policy.

Many people subconsciously feel childcare should operate almost like a public utility rather than a business. The moment profit enters the discussion, some people emotionally interpret it as ‘making money from children’.
That framing is powerful, and has been badly exploited by successive governments who continue to underfund these businesses. Nonetheless, it ignores the reality that nurseries employ large teams, settings carry enormous regulatory burdens and owners often work extreme hours. There’s also buildings, insurance, food, training, maintenance and compliance are expensive. Providers frequently earn less than people imagine. Without sustainability, provision collapses

There’s a broader cultural issue in the UK specifically. Britain tends to be more suspicious of profit in care-related sectors than countries like the US. Profit in technology, luxury goods, finance, fashion, restaurants or cosmetics is often admired. Profit in childcare, elderly care, housing and utilities
is often treated as morally questionable.
Part of this comes from the fact that taxpayers subsidise childcare. Once government funding enters the picture, the public often feels they are morally entitled to scrutinise provider margins, even though supermarkets profit from food subsidies indirectly, landlords profit from housing benefit indirectly, private defence contractors profit from public money and pharmaceutical companies profit massively from health systems. Yet childcare providers are uniquely expected to operate with near-sacrificial motives.

There is also a gendered element which cannot be overlooked. Early years has historically been associated with maternal instinct and ‘care’. Or dare we say, ‘women’s work’. Historically undervalued and, very wrongly, seen as unskilled. It is not associated with entrepreneurship. Society is often more comfortable praising aggressive growth and margins in male-dominated sectors than in sectors built around nurturing. This is such a blatant denigration of the female gender role, that it’s a wonder no-one has been accused of misogyny (yet)!
Ironically, people usually do want beautiful environments, low staff turnover, highly trained staff, homemade food, outdoor space, low ratios, emotional warmth and of course excellent safeguarding processes.
But these things are extremely expensive to provide properly, and extremely hard work to deliver.
The contradiction in UK childcare policy is that society wants a high quality, labour-intensive service while simultaneously resisting the idea that providers must make healthy margins to survive and reinvest. And frankly make it worth the risk!
Countries with stronger systems, like the Nordic models, often resolve this tension by openly accepting one of two positions:
childcare is a genuine public service and is funded accordingly (at around double the UK rate)
or
private provision is acceptable and providers are allowed sustainable profits within the system.

The UK tends to sit awkwardly in the middle, expecting private providers to deliver outstanding services while politically attacking them if they behave like businesses.

Perhaps it’s time a provider went in front of the dragons … maybe, just maybe, they might acknowledge it with the kudos it deserves, though it’s likely none if them would invest with current profit margins being just a few percent rather than 900!