Motherhood Penalty

Are mums hiding their babies to land jobs in 2024?

Women have come a long way in the workplace to achieve equality, however, many still feel the need to hide the fact that they are working mother’s to progress in their careers.

Earlier this year, Zipdo recorded that 70% of mothers with children under 18 years old join the labor force full-time to ensure career longevity. This figure highlights the role that mothers play not only at home but in the workforce.?

You Can’t Ask That?

Landing an interview for a prospective job can be incredibly exciting. However, many mothers have voiced anger with the types of inappropriate questions that have been asked during the interview process, including; their age, marital status and parenthood intentions.

Zipdo recently conducted a study related to working mothers returning to the workforce, which revealed almost half of employers (46%) believe it is acceptable to ask women if they have young children during the hiring process, leading some to withhold the fact they have dependents for fear of job rejection.?

Is there a motherhood penalty?

Are we penalising professional women that choose to leave the workforce and become mothers with a “motherhood penalty”?? In short, if women ask for a little flexibility, but are willing to put up with toxic workplaces & turn down promotions, are we still judging them?

According to The Guardian , 1 in 10 mothers are handing in their resignation in the UK due to the lack of balance they have at work and childcare.??

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) released Australia’s Gender Equality Scorecard on 27 February 2024. According to the stats, more women work part-time (42.7%) or casually (29.7%) than men (part-time 10.8%) and (casually 22.3%), while more men (66.9%)work full-time compared to women (42.7%), which is not surprising.?

Flexibility?

The pandemic brought a whole new way of thinking about how we get work done. Companies were forced to shut down their offices and employees had to work from home. WFH brought more flexibility and the realisation that employees can still work without being confined to an office. Women in particular benefit from the flexibility since women are more likely to be the primary caregivers, which means that work needs to fit around their busy schedules (i.e. school drop-offs, curriculum days, school holidays, etc.).?

Plus, studies have shown a positive correlation between employee satisfaction and engagement with the ability to WFH. According to a report published by Tracking Happy , WFH increases employee happiness by as much as 20%. Seriously!

Communication?

So, can women have successful careers and be mothers? Every mother is in a unique position and it’s hard to say one way or another. What can be said is that flexibility is crucial in allowing women to juggle work and family life and better policies need to be put into place to protect women.?

Hopefully, with WGEA’s Australia’s Gender Equality Scorecard , conversations around supporting mothers in the workplace become more common and women won’t feel the need to stay in toxic workplaces just to stay employed.?