My husband has been very busy the past few weeks and not able to help me around the house. Taking care of Juliana full-time, cleaning and cooking has forced me to put my book on hold. This past week I was only able to write two sentences and do some fact checking.
We were intrigued when someone close to us said she the cost of her in-home babysitter is covered by social security. As if sent from someone above, a few days later I received the purple Vos Prestations 2012 booklet by Allocations Familiales. It includes all the information we needed about childcare assistance.
Qualifying for subsidized daycare depends on your 2010 income. If you are married, then it is based on your combined income. Lucky for us, 2010 is the year I moved to France and lived off my savings. At least depleting my savings served some future good.
Income from January to 31 December 2010 |
|||
Number of Children |
Less than |
Less than |
Greater than |
1 child |
20,281 € |
45,068 € |
45,068 € |
2 children |
23,350 |
51,889 |
51,889 |
3 children |
27,033 |
60,074 |
60,074 |
Hiring a Babysitter Directly |
|||
Child’s Age | |||
Less than 3 years old |
452.75 |
285.49 |
171.27 |
3 to 6 years old |
226.38 |
142.77 |
85.63 |
Employing from an Association, Business or Microcrèche |
|||
Takes care of the infant at their location |
|||
Less than 3 years old |
685.11 |
570.94 |
456.76 |
3 to 6 years old |
342.56 |
285.47 |
228.39 |
Takes care of the infant in your home |
|||
Less than 3 years old |
827.87 |
713.66 |
599.48 |
3 to 6 years old |
413.94 |
356.83 |
299.75 |
For instance, pretend that you are a single mother of a 6 month old and made 40,000 euros in 2010. You would qualify to receive 285.49/month to hire a babysitter directly, 570.94/month to bring your child to a daycare, or 713.66/month to have someone come to your home that is affiliated with an association, business or microcrèche. If you are married, then your combined income would have to be 40,000 for this example.
My husband called a local association and found that it charges 18 euros per hour for someone to come to my home. I divided the monthly allotment by the 18 euros to see how many hours are completely covered by social security per month.
Takes care of the infant in your home (# hours free per month) |
|||
Less than 3 years old |
46 |
40 |
33 |
3 to 6 years old |
23 |
20 |
17 |
Depending on our income for 2010, we could have 33 to 46 hours of free in-home childcare per month with this association. If we qualify for 40 hours and want someone for 60 hours, then that would cost us 360 euros/month. The cost without this aid for 60 hours would be 1080 euros/month.
Most children in France attend school at 2 years old, so the government provides less assistance for kids 3 to 6 years old. This aid is mostly to help parents who work when the child is home from school.
As for me, I will get either 10 or 11.5 hours per week to work on my book. I chose the in-house babysitter because I am not ready for Juliana to go somewhere. We love having her at the house and around for our work breaks. She has learned to take my milk from a bottle like a champion – she even holds it herself. We also have been working on nudging her on a schedule. This way we can have the babysitter come in between nap times.
It will still be distracting to have Juliana here. I hope not to be one of those mothers who hover over the babysitter. I will have to lock myself in my office, which happens to also be Juliana’s room. Yeah, I can sense a problem there. I will have to change that.
Katherine says
While all of this sounds lovely on the surface, there are many things that are not exactly obvious when going through this process. We are an American and Canadian living in the South of France for almost 13 months. We have a daughter (Guilliana…ironically!) who will be 2 years old in 2 weeks. We hired a Nourrice or nounou garde a domicile (what we would call a Nanny in the States) to come to our home and work full time through an agency. After almost 8 months of fighting with the CAF (caisse d’Allocations familiales) we were repeatedly asked for non-existent paperwork and letters from the Prefecture, etc. After getting my company involved (a very large and well-respected technology giant in the region) we were told that basically this is standard procedure for anyone who is not French or whose child was not born here! It is also completely illegal and there have been repeated court cases that the CAF has lost for doing this exact thing, yet they continue the practice in hopes that you eventually give up and go away.
Your situation is obviously different, but in the end we paid an exorbitant amount in cotisations, far beyond what anyone here would tell us was possible initially. There is some possibility that we will receive up to 50% of this back up to €15,000 through our taxes, but if I’ve learned anything from our time here, I’ll believe it when I see it!
I would make certain if I were you that you are calculating everything correctly. I do not think that the amount per month translates directly into “free hours”…I believe that if you employ someone part or full time then they kick in a percentage UP TO the amount you are specifiying above. In other words, if you are only having someone come for 10 hours a week, the amount they provide might only be 50% of the maximum allowable. So…if you employed them full time, 10.5 – 11 of those hours WOULD be “free” based on your calculations, but you’re still going to have to pay for the other 26-30 hours they work.
At any rate, it is good that you indeed get SOMETHING back for the incredible amount of taxes that you pay into the system, it’s just not always as easy and straightforward as some make it seem!
Good luck to you and your family!
molly says
what is this ‘purple booklet from the family allowances’ please?
something form the CAF?
and how do i get one please?
it explains what my rights for financial help for a nanny?
thanks!!!