Is it worth working after paying for childcare? In Seattle a $56,250 second salary brings home $12,842. In Stockholm it brings home $45,997.
By Skyler Bissell · September 12, 2026 · 11 min read
A second earner on $56,250 in Seattle, with a three-year-old and a seven-year-old, brings home $12,842 of it. The household's tax bill rises by $11,128 because her salary is stacked on top of her partner's, and the full-time place plus after-school care her job makes necessary cost $32,280. So yes, in Seattle, working is worth $12,842 a year in money. Whether that is worth forty hours a week is her call. In Stockholm the identical salary, restated in kronor, brings home the equivalent of $45,997. In Zurich the household ends the year CHF 2,167 worse off for her working, at the unsubsidised nursery rate.
I ran one household through seven cities in six countries and split the second salary three ways in each: the tax it adds, the childcare it buys, and what is left. The split sums to the salary in every city, so nothing is hidden in a rounding. The pair to this page, the second income trap, reads the same figures as a rate and ranks the cities; this one is the money.
What a second salary is worth to a household, as this page measures it, is the household's net cash with both parents working and the children in paid care, minus its net cash with one parent at home and no care bought. That difference is the salary less two things: the income tax and contributions the salary adds to the household's bill, and the childcare bill the job makes necessary. It leaves out what the job is worth beyond the year (pension contributions, the next promotion, the salary in five years) and says so below.
TL;DR
- The second salary reaches the household in Stockholm $33,155 a year more than in Seattle, on the same USD 150,000 household. The seven-city ledger.
- Berlin has the cheapest childcare on the page and one of the worst outcomes for the second earner, because Ehegattensplitting taxes her first euro at the household's marginal rate. The tax on the second salary.
- In Seattle she works 7 months of the year for the nursery before the household sees a dollar. The childcare bill.
One second salary, seven cities
The household is the one I use for every mixed US and European comparison: two earners splitting USD 150,000 at a 100/60 ratio, so the second earner is on $56,250; a three-year-old in full-time care and a seven-year-old at school with after-school care; a two-bedroom rental; 6% of pay into retirement. Abroad the household income is restated in local currency at a fixed ratio: €138,000 in Berlin and Amsterdam, £118,501 in London, SEK 1,575,000 in Stockholm and CHF 120,000 in Zurich, with the second earner on the 60 side of the split everywhere. The counterfactual in every city is the same household with her at home: her partner's salary is unchanged, the couple still files as a couple where the country files couples together, the child benefit is unchanged, and no childcare is bought.
| City and household income | Second salary | Tax it adds to the household bill | Childcare it makes necessary | What reaches the household |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle, $150,000 | $56,250 | $11,128 | $32,280 | $12,842 |
| New York, $150,000 | $56,250 | $15,302 | $38,400 | $2,548 |
| Berlin, €138,000 | €51,750 | €22,973 | €720 | €28,057 ($32,510) |
| London, £118,501 | £44,438 | £8,390 | £25,200 | £10,848 ($14,699) |
| Amsterdam, €138,000 | €51,750 | €10,176 | €14,760 | €26,814 ($31,071) |
| Stockholm, SEK 1,575,000 | SEK 590,625 | SEK 122,720 | SEK 30,936 | SEK 436,969 ($45,997) |
| Zurich, CHF 120,000 | CHF 45,000 | CHF 7,567 | CHF 39,600 | -CHF 2,167 (-$2,676) |
Engine figures for the household described above, at the exchange rates in the current build. Tax is the household's income tax plus mandatory employee contributions with both earning, minus the same bill with the second earner at home. Childcare is a full-time place for the three-year-old plus after-school care for the seven-year-old at each city's own rates, net of any subsidy the household qualifies for at this income; Amsterdam's is net of kinderopvangtoeslag, London's is the unfunded Coram rate, Zurich's is the unsubsidised Stadt Zürich rate, New York's is from Care.com listings, which is crowdsourced and marked as such. The three columns sum to the second salary. A negative figure in the last column means the household has less money with her working.
Read the last column. Stockholm hands the household SEK 436,969 of a SEK 590,625 salary, because Swedish income tax is levied on her alone, the municipal rate is flat, and the förskola fee is capped by Skolverket's maxtaxa at a few percent of household income. Berlin and Amsterdam land close to each other, at €28,057 and €26,814, by opposite routes: Berlin's Kita is food money and the tax line does the damage, Amsterdam's tax line is light and the nursery bill does it. Seattle and London both keep about a quarter of the salary. New York keeps $2,548, which is a rounding error on a year's work. Zurich is below zero.
Two things about the Zurich row before anyone quotes it. The figure is the market rate: Stadt Zürich publishes income-tested Betreuungsgutscheine that reduce a Kita bill substantially, and a household on CHF 120,000 may qualify for them; our engine bills the unsubsidised rate and names the help beside it. And the restated household income is modest for Zurich, where professional pay runs high, so the same family with a Zurich-sized salary would sit further up the tax schedule and the vouchers would fall away. The direction survives both caveats: a Zurich nursery place for one child costs more per month than most second earners in this household take home.
The tax on the second salary depends on who files
Look at the third column against the second. In Berlin the household's tax bill rises by €22,973 on a €51,750 salary, which is 44.4% of what she earns. In London it rises by £8,390 on £44,438, which is 18.9%. The two countries have similar top rates. The difference is who files.
Germany taxes married couples together under Ehegattensplitting, § 32a Abs. 5 EStG: the couple's income is halved, taxed, and the result doubled. That is a gift to a household with one earner and a bill for the second earner, because her first euro is added to a household already deep in the progressive tariff, and social insurance takes its share of her gross on top. The United States works the same way for federal tax under married filing jointly: her salary sits on top of his in the joint brackets, so Seattle's 19.8% is mostly federal income tax at the household's marginal rate plus her own Social Security and Medicare, and New York's 27.2% adds state and city income tax to that.
Britain has taxed spouses independently since 1990, Sweden since 1971, and the Netherlands assesses employment income per person in Box 1. In each of those, the second earner gets her own personal allowance or low bands, so her salary is taxed the way a single person's would be: London 18.9%, Amsterdam 19.7%, Stockholm 20.8%. Zurich files the couple together under the cantonal Verheiratetentarif and still comes in at 16.8%, because Swiss income tax at this household's income is low to begin with; the Zurich problem is on the other side of the ledger. The whole household's effective rates, both earners in, sit beside the healthcare line in the true tax burden once healthcare is counted, and I have not repeated them here.
The childcare bill is the other half
The fourth column is a monthly bill multiplied by twelve, so here it is by the month. Seattle charges $2,690 a month for the two children, from the US Department of Labor's National Database of Childcare Prices for King County; at her salary that is 7 months of gross pay a year handed to the nursery before tax or the household sees anything. New York charges $3,200. London charges £2,100 at Coram's unfunded rate, and both earners in this household sit under the GBP 100,000 test for the 30 funded hours, so the real London bill is lower than the table shows; 30 hours free childcare in the UK prices what the funded hours are worth once claimed. Zurich charges CHF 3,300 at the unsubsidised Stadt Zürich rate, which is more than she earns in a month.
Then the three where policy caps the price. Amsterdam bills a market rate and refunds part of it through kinderopvangtoeslag, a benefit that requires both parents to work, so the net figure of €1,230 a month belongs on the working side and only there. Stockholm's maxtaxa caps the förskola and fritids fee, so the household pays SEK 2,578 a month. Berlin abolished Kita fees in 2018 and the Hort for a second-grader is free, so the household pays €60 a month in food money. The full country spread is in childcare costs by country.
Put the two halves together and the pattern is the one the second income trap ranks: the best outcome is the one city where the tax on her salary is individual and the nursery fee is capped, and the worst is the one where the fee is a market price larger than her pay. Neither the tax rule nor the price on its own predicts the answer. Berlin has free childcare and loses her 45.8% of her salary; Amsterdam has expensive childcare and loses her 48.2%.
What the ledger leaves out
- The years after this one. The childcare column falls at every birthday and reaches zero when the seven-year-old no longer needs after-school care, while the salary column carries on and grows. A second earner who stays in work through the nursery years keeps the promotions, the pension contributions and the salary in five years' time; one who leaves often returns at a lower level. The ledger prices one year and the decision is about ten.
- The income-tested help. Zurich's Betreuungsgutscheine, Seattle's Child Care Assistance Program (which stops at USD 153,244 for a family of four, just above this household) and London's funded hours would each cut the childcare column for a family that secures them. The engine bills the market price and names the programme beside it.
- The commute and the second car. Transit is one pass per adult in every city and does not change when she stops working, so it cancels out of the split. In a car-dependent US suburb it would not cancel.
- The parental leave year. A child born in Stockholm or Berlin comes with a paid leave entitlement that a Seattle or New York job largely does not, and that is a separate line priced in the cost of raising kids, the framework this page hangs off.
Run it for your own household
The three inputs that move this answer are the children's ages, the country's filing rule and the local nursery price, in that order. The calculator takes your partner's salary and has a box for whether they work in each city; untick it, set the care to none, and the difference in the net cash line is your version of the last column. The Seattle to Berlin comparison for a family and the New York to Zurich comparison for a family carry the full receipt for their published household. The same seven-city family, priced on the children's three lines instead of the second salary, is in is it cheaper to raise a child in Europe.
FAQ
Is it worth going back to work if childcare costs more than my salary?
In money, for that year, no, and the Zurich row on this page is a household in exactly that position at unsubsidised nursery rates. The year is the qualifier. The childcare bill falls at every birthday and stops when the younger child starts school, while the salary, the pension contributions and the promotions that come with staying in work carry on. Most people who run the numbers treat the nursery years as a fee for keeping a career, and the fee is worth paying in most of the seven cities here. Check the income-tested help first: Zurich's Betreuungsgutscheine and Seattle's Child Care Assistance Program both sit within reach of this household and neither is counted above.
Why does the second earner pay a higher tax rate than the first?
In a country that taxes the couple jointly, the second salary is added on top of the first and every unit of it is taxed at the household's marginal rate, with no allowance or low band of its own. Germany's Ehegattensplitting and the US married-filing-jointly ladder both work this way, which is why the Berlin household on this page loses 44.4% of the second salary to tax while the London household, taxed person by person under HMRC's independent taxation, loses 18.9%. Sweden and the Netherlands tax each earner separately as well.
Does the household lose child benefit when the second parent works?
Not in any of the seven cities on this page. Kindergeld, barnbidrag, kinderbijslag, the Swiss Kinderzulage and the US Child Tax Credit are the same whether one parent works or two, at this household's income, and our engine carries London's child benefit as zero either way because of the High Income Child Benefit Charge on the higher earner. What does change is the childcare subsidy: the Dutch kinderopvangtoeslag and the US dependent care account both require both parents to work, and both are counted only on the working side.
How do I run this for my own family?
Put your household into our calculator with your partner's salary entered, note the net cash line, then untick the box that says your partner works in the destination and set the children's care to none, and read the net cash line again. The difference is what the second salary is worth to the household in that city after its tax and its childcare. Run it for both cities in a move, because the answer changes with the country more than with the salary.
Sources. The method follows the OECD Family Database's childcare-support indicator (OECD, PF3.4 Childcare support), which defines net childcare costs as "the difference in family net income between a family that uses centre-based childcare services and an otherwise identical family that does not". Joint and individual filing: § 32a EStG for Ehegattensplitting; IRS, tax year 2026 inflation adjustments for the married-filing-jointly brackets; HMRC, income tax rates (independent taxation of spouses since 1990); Skatteverket for Sweden's individual taxation; the Belastingdienst for Box 1 assessment per fiscal partner; the ESTV Rundschreiben Nr. 215 and Zürich § 35 Abs. 2 StG for the married tariff. Childcare prices: the US Department of Labor, National Database of Childcare Prices (Seattle); Care.com listings for New York, crowdsourced and marked as such; the Berlin Senate, Kostenbeteiligung; Coram's Family and Childcare Survey for London; IJsterk and the Belastingdienst kinderopvangtoeslag tables for Amsterdam; Skolverket's maxtaxa for Stockholm; Stadt Zürich, Kita and its Tagesschule for Zurich. Pages retrieved 12 September 2026 where linked; the rest are the authorities recorded per field in data/_meta.json. Every computed figure is from cityparity's engine, and our price lines split between official and crowdsourced sources as described in the methodology.
Figures here come from cityparity's per-city engine and were current at publication; fees, benefit amounts and exchange rates move, so treat any single number as a strong estimate and run your own inputs. Where our comparison pages quote an equivalent salary, it is the bar an offer has to clear in the destination city and it is not a job offer. See the methodology.