Why are we still failing to support working mothers in their careers?

It takes two to tango. Broadly speaking that is. But when it comes to the impact on careers of having a child it’s clear that it’s still women taking the majority of the hits.

No pay increases, often a step back or sideways in their career, overlooked for promotion and that’s before you start to look at the wider impacts on mental wellbeing, health, happiness, stress levels and confidence.

There’s one very clear conclusion. The working world is failing working mothers. Not just once or twice, but there’s a clear systematic failure that needs to be addressed by businesses, employers, line managers and anyone who is working.

Are there steps in the right direction? Tiny ones, yes. It was great to see positive moves forward with more childcare support announced from the government to help support working parents.

Are these steps enough? Most definitely not.

Can we solve this? By working together, yes we can.

20th November

We’ve all heard of the gender pay gap. But did you know that up until a woman is 30 the gap is only 1%?

Did you also know that the average age of a first time mother is 30?

By the time a woman is 40 or older the pay gap increases to 14.9% and it doesn’t recover.

If there’s ever been more evidence of the negative impact having children has on a woman’s career and pay then that’s it.

For working women, regardless of their family status, 20 November marks the day that women effectively stop being paid for the work for the rest of the year. Highlighting that while the gender pay gap can be traced back to working mothers, it’s an issue that affects all working women.

The gender pay gap has real consequences for working mothers.

With the UK having one of the most expensive childcare systems in the world, and the onus of funding falling on women it means many working mothers are forced out of the workplace because they simply can’t afford it.

For those working mothers who do manage a return to the workplace it’s likely that they’re on the same salary, or less, than they were prior to maternity leave with only 26% of women earning more than they were before having children.

This financial pressure and disparity that’s on women is something that could be avoided. It’s something that businesses could address.

Through conscious decision making and leading with empathy and humanity they could:

●     Conduct regular pay reviews benchmarked across all positions, genders and levels.

●     Put in place mentoring and support schemes to help women gain promotions.

Without adequate financial remuneration for their work, women will continue to feel demoralised, devalued.

Then when it comes to making a decision around who stays at home with the children or who reduces their working hours to facilitate childcare, for many working mothers there simply isn’t a choice.

The brakes on career progression

It isn’t just women’s pay that stalls. On average it takes 10 years for a working mother’s career to get back on track and return to the same, or higher level of seniority after having children.

That’s 10 years of lost experience and opportunities.

10 years of missed promotions.

10 years of side steps instead of strides forward.

It’s no wonder that when faced with the lack of pay and the prospect of stepping down or out, 32% of those at a managerial level choose to leave the workforce.

It begs the question how can businesses support women returning at a managerial level or higher to have a successful return and a prosperous career?

After all, those things are beneficial to an organisation so it seems short-sighted that working women are discounted once they’ve had children.

The saying; 'women are expected to raise children like they don’t work and work like they don’t have children' definitely rings true in this scenario.

With women making up 50% of the population and 86% of those mothers by the age of 40, why as a society are we still failing to support women in the way they need to be supported?

Working mothers don’t just feel the impact upon their return.

Many feel forced to return in case they’re superseded by their maternity cover.

20% of Directors only took between three and six months off. That pressure comes from both an internal fear of being out of the race for too long but there’s also an external pressure to return as quickly as possible.

That’s something I have personal experience of.

Before I had children, I was focused on my career and determined to become a Director before I was 30 and I achieved my goal. I was then lucky enough to have children.

Unfortunately, my first baby was born premature at 27 weeks and was extremely poorly in hospital. Yet while my baby was in the incubator, I was asked by my employer at the time to have meetings with staff members and was pressured to quickly come back into the office.

When my second baby was also born prematurely, I was again pressured to quickly come back to work.

I took the decision to leave and joined Ambition as an Associate Director, a step down from my previous role, to enable me to have the ability to still do the job I loved and enjoyed but at a more junior level, whilst my children were younger and needed more care.

As my children grew up, I was able to focus on my career again. Now as the Managing Director of the company, I have made it my personal mission to ensure that my employees never have to go through the experiences I did.

Your role in making change happen

If you take nothing else away from this article then please let it be this: We all have a role to play in changing the working world for mothers.

From your own personal life and the support you give to friends and family, to looking at the managerial responsibilities you have, to challenging pre-existing practices in your workplace.

We all have a role to play.

For business leaders and Directors you can do this by:

●     Supporting flexible working and enabling it to be a success for everyone, not just women.

●     Investigate how maternity leave is handled in your organisation and make sure women’s roles are truly protected and they’re empowered to step right back into them.

●     Part time work for part time hours. If someone is part time then their responsibilities need to reduce in line with that.

●     Throw away presenteeism. Just because someone is physically in front of you that doesn’t mean they’re outperforming those working remotely.

●     Build a flexible culture where all parents are encouraged to attend assemblies, sports days and do pick ups.

●     Prioritise wellbeing.

●     Help women have choices through mentoring, job shares, career development and training.

They aren’t radical changes to make. But they will make the world of difference to your employees, both male and female, parents and child-free. And as a result your employee engagement, retention and productivity will benefit too.

Facts to make you think

This subject has been covered before. People nod their heads and agree that more needs to be done. But nothing changes. The words have lost their impact. So we’d like to leave you with some cold-hard numbers, thanks to the Careers After Babies report.

We hope that these figures will stop and make you think about your role in supporting all working mothers in the workplace.

●     98% of mothers want to work

●     85% of women leave the full-time workforce within three years of having children

●     79% of women who returned to the same company but in a different role, left within two years

●     There are 32% fewer women in mid-management roles after having children and a 44% increase in women in admin and entry-level roles

●     It’s taking 10 years for a mother’s career to recover and get back to the same level of seniority or higher after having children

●     74% of women are earning less or the same as before they had children

Every year we lose at least 25,080 women from the workforce.

It’s those 25,080 women that we’re failing at every step.

What are you going to do to change that?

All statistics in this article are from the Careers After Babies report by That Works For Me.