The motherhood penalty

I felt really quite unsure about writing this post. But in the end, yet another conversation with my 10-year-old daughter, Isadora about injustices, made my decision for me. There’s nothing quite like a child being your conscience! And Isadora has quite a knack for pointing out injustices in society, asking how they’ve happened, and asking: What have you done about it, Mum? Or: What are you going to do about it, Mum? The injustices she notices are quite wide-ranging and I often feel guilty at what my generation seems to expect the next generation to fix. Problems that we’ve created or inherited and not managed to resolve. And as you’d expect from a 10-year-old girl, of all the injustices she sees, gender inequality is fairly near the top of her list. I don’t think there’s a book about the suffragettes that she’s not read. Primary school history books are soon to include a section on a modern-day suffragette if you like. A formidable woman who is working tirelessly to make the workplace a more equitable place to be. I say tirelessly, but as she has two young children and works as well as campaigns, I imagine she’s permanently tired. A feeling I can definitely empathise with as a mother of three primary school aged children, and I don’t campaign! Which kind of brings me back to my original point.

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Gender inequality in the workplace is something I can honestly say I think about every day. And I talk about it with anyone who will listen most days too. And in fact, the rage about it all has kept me awake at night on more than one occasion. But what action am I taking to improve things? When Isadora asks me what I’ve done about it, other than tell her that I rage about it, I don’t have a good answer. And as I said, Isadora has a knack of making you feel that you really must take action. When she was four years old, she asked her auntie and uncle why they thought it was okay to eat animals. Isadora’s a vegetarian. Two weeks later, they came back to her and told her they’d considered her question and didn’t have an answer, so they were going vegetarian. So here I am, writing this post so that I can say, actually, I’ve taken the first step in trying to do something about the injustice I see in society. The society that my children, two of whom are female, are growing up in. I don’t want them facing the challenges I, and millions of other women, have faced and continue to face.

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So what exactly do I rage over? What keeps me up at night? Gender inequality is obviously a complex topic. There are many reasons it exists. And women will have many different experiences. I can only talk about mine. For me, it’s the statistics about what becoming a mum does to your career. ?

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Every year, 54,000 mothers are pushed out of work because of inflexibility, childcare costs, and maternity discrimination. Three times more women than men said they had to choose between their career and childcare. 52% of working women in the UK have left or considered leaving their role because of a lack of flexibility. Women need to work an extra 19 years to close the gender pension gap*. And according to the annual PWC Women in Work Index, the gender pay gap grew from 14.3% to 14.5% in 2022, sitting well above the global average of 13.5%. PWC blamed the setback on the pay penalty women face after becoming mothers. It’s called the motherhood penalty. And it makes a significant contribution to the gender pay gap. And take a look at this graph from organisation Pregnant Then Screwed, about what becoming a mum and going on maternity leave does to your pay.

Shocking isn’t it?

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The wording used in the Instagram post I saw which shared this graph (@pregnant_then_screwed) is wording I can’t improve upon, so here it is: Earnings falling like a rhino doing a belly flop only to vomit her way slowly, painfully and uncomfortably back to what can only be described as a paltry second-class place.

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I regularly see LinkedIn posts from people who are passionate about gender inequality in the workplace citing examples and statistics that are both outrageous and sad. A few weeks ago, a recruiter who specialises in my area of work posted that in the whole of 2023 only one single solitary part time job crossed her desk for her to recruit for. Every other role was full time. How is it possible that every single job takes exactly 37.5 hours to complete each week? And 22.5 of those hours have to be worked in the office usually too. Seeing these posts feels so hopeless. As if no one is listening. As if things will never change. It feels like that if a woman decides to have a child, they’re effectively saying they no longer want a career. Unless they’re in a position to be able to return to work full time. Which many, many women aren’t. And many more women don’t want to. And shouldn’t society support women who can’t or don’t want to? Shouldn’t we support parents raising the next generation?

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40% of women in employment work part time, compared to 13% of men*. I’m one of those people working part time. I’ve worked part time since I returned to work from my first maternity leave. I don’t really have a choice. People really don’t seem to understand the complexities and limitations of childcare in the UK. Simply put, the childcare system in this country is well and truly broken. Take me as an example. Until my children went to school, to be able to work full time, I’d have been paying significantly more in childcare than I was earning. Now they’re in school, there simply isn’t any childcare provision. They’re too old for nursery, child minders don’t want to juggle several clients with part time needs, they just simplify their working lives and have clients whose children they care for five days a week. And have you ever tried to get your child/ren into breakfast or after school club? They often have long waiting lists, and actually aren’t helpful for parents who work full time with a commute – they open at 8 and close at 6. I’d need them to open earlier and close later to be able to do a day’s work at my office.

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So we have no choice. One of us has to work around our children’s needs. And in our family, that’s me. There are many reasons it’s me, too many for this post. But here I am, working part time. And don’t get me wrong, at this point, I wouldn’t want to work full time. I like the balance being part time offers me. I enjoy the days where I’m doing my unpaid job, being mum. Mostly anyway! But as I’ve said, only being able to work part time is, sadly, still career limiting, even in 2024. According to that LinkedIn post, anyone searching for a part time job won’t find many to apply for. Take a look at current vacancies advertised, whether on individual companies’ websites or on LinkedIn. The jobs listed are predominantly for 37.5 hours. Sometimes if you dig deeper you might discover the offer of considering a request to reduce your working hours or amend your location. Making it really clear that you welcome part time applicants is a simple action but so important. I’d even suggest organisations could go a step further and ask hiring managers to carefully consider whether the outputs required from a role really can only be filled by someone working 37.5 hours a week. If you look at the outputs, could it be that the role could be achieved by someone working less hours? If organisations genuinely care about closing the gender pay gap, they must support and promote part time workers.

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In the words of Anna Whitehouse: Working part time doesn’t mean you are part talented, part ambitious, part driven, part bothered. It simply means fewer days, less pay. And like most part-timers, I believe I deliver a lot in the hours I work. Working part time really heightens your focus. I’m just trying to contribute to society and the economy through working part time, and also raise the next generation. The next generation who will take their turn to contribute to society. The next generation who will hopefully do a better job than we’ve done making improvements to issues like gender inequality in the workplace.

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If we want women to contribute to the economy, flexible working needs to work. Part time working is one way in which we can work flexibly. Another way is working from home. Did you know that working from home is also proven to keep mothers in the workforce? Which closes the gender pay gap. It’s not office versus home. It’s about inclusion in the workforce. Do we believe in equality?

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There is a generation of mothers who are burning out, losing out, breaking down simply trying to exist. As a family. With a career. Something needs to change so that Isadora doesn’t grow up having the same experience if she chooses to become a mother. We must support mothers to be able to contribute to society and raise the next generation in a manageable and equitable way. Supporting flexible working patterns is one way we can do this.

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And in the interests of clarity, I sincerely hope it goes without saying that part time working patterns, along with all the other flexible working patterns, don’t offer inclusivity solely to mums, to parents; flexible working is for everyone. Those with caring responsibilities other than parenting, and those with disabilities for example. This post focuses on the motherhood penalty because one post couldn’t possibly cover all aspects of gender inequality in the workplace. So I chose to post about something I’ve experienced. I’d love to hear others’ experiences and perspectives.?

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*the stats in this post are from Anna Whitehouse; Pregnant Then Screwed; The Workstyle Revolution, and Working Families.

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