Labour is to put childcare at the centre of its next manifesto and is examining models in Norway and Denmark, where the state foots the bill for the poorest in society.

As the number of unemployed women in the UK hits 1.1 million, it is believed that the cost of childcare is preventing many from returning to work after having children.

The shadow work and pensions secretary, Liam Byrne, and the shadow education secretary, Stephen Twigg, writing in the Observer, say childcare is an "early priority" for Labour as it formulates policies for the next general election. Arguing that the coalition's benefit reforms will trap people in worklessness, they commit to learning from Scandinavia, where 10% more women are in work.

Byrne and Twigg write: "Our argument is that social security needs to help people work, not close down the options. That's what William Beveridge argued 70 years ago. In Beveridge's day, childcare often meant mothers at home and a network of friends, neighbours and family. Today it demands something different. In office, we increased tax credits to cover up to 80% of childcare costs, with free nurseries for three- and four-year-olds and 3,500 Sure Start children's centres. The next Labour government will need to be just as transformative. That's why we're looking to the best in the world for answers. In Norway, for example, parents can access childcare from birth to age five, at a cost that's half the OECD average. And there's more we can learn from Denmark than the plotlines of Borgen. In Denmark, childcare is free to the lowest-income families. The results are good for children and good for work."

The emergence of childcare as one of Labour's big ideas for the next election follows Labour leader Ed Miliband's claim at the Welsh Labour conference that the government's tax and benefit changes were proving to be another "squeeze on the squeezed middle". Gavin Kelly, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said studies proved women were being kept out of the workplace by exorbitant childcare costs. He said: "Rising female employment was absolutely vital in raising the living standards of low- to middle-income households over recent decades. Yet long before the recent recession this growth started to tail off.

"If we want to get back on track, we'll need more affordable childcare and for it to be available during the hours people work. At the moment, too many women face a double penalty: after having children, they have to trade down in pay and skills in order to work part-time, then they find that this low-paid work barely makes sense once they've factored in childcare costs."