Why au pairs might become a thing of the past

Brexit and wage ruling are threatening the 'mutually beneficial arrangement'

Collage of a vintage illustration of a family having a picnic. There is a cutout blank space in the shape of a young woman, carrying the picnic basket. In her absence, two small kids struggle to hold it up. In the background, there is a flag of the UK.
(Image credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images)

Since the Second World War, they have been "serving as the largely unmentioned glue holding middle-class families together", but now the au pair industry has "collapsed", according to a report.

A double blow of Brexit and a minimum wage ruling have "ruined the tradition of exchanging bed and board for help with the kids", said The Sunday Times, and a leading trade body has waved the white flag and shut its doors.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.