So where does it go wrong for women?

[Falalalafishfingers]

I'm sure this has been asked a 1009 times!
Read so many times in threads that it makes more sense for woman to give up work/ cut hours as dh/dp earns so much more. This suggests that men are already earning more pre-children?
So where does it go wrong? My guess is university.

@Iknowwhatudidlastsummer

I worked in teams where women were simply not interested in progressing higher. Thankfully, there are enough ambitious women to raise the bar, but it was mainly the young child-free WOMEN who finished on the dot, and refused to work evenings and weekends, demanded a lunch break and so on.

I always found it puzzling, there was a clear lack of drive from one gender.

How dare women only work the hours that they are paid and not give free labour to the company.

As a society we need to stop this presenteeism bullshit.

My wife only worked the hours that she was paid and was promoted regularly as she worked bloody hard and did a great job during those hours.

This suggests that men are already earning more pre-children? So where does it go wrong? My guess is university.

No. Some recent studies show that women tend to outearn men during the first 10 years or so of their careers. I also read somewhere (very vague I know!) that one third of women outearn their husbands. It's mostly the choices made, freely or otherwise, after the arrival of children that open up the wage disparity between men and women.

My experience is the women i know have no interest in getting to a decent salary before having kids. They then automatically change career or drop hours so they are earning even less than before

Always worked full time i have 2 kids

@MindGrapes

Women 'of fertile age' are assumed by some recruiters to be going to get pregnant so don't get jobs/promotions over men.

Obviously this is regardless of whether the woman wants to have kids or not, or her fertility. It's "safer" to hire a bloke, in their minds.

Employers also think/thought that women wouldn't stay in the job as long as men, when the stats actually showed that men stayed for fewer years.

Reality has never has much effect on prejudice.

@sassbott

Women on Mumsnet are not a representative sample of women across the UK. The high earners don't tend to post on here. I have high-earning friends, who earn more than their DHs, and no way would they have time to be chatting on Mumsnet.

@HelloThereMeHearties I’m not entirely sure what you deem a ‘high earner’ but I probably fall in that category. I actually post on mnet quite frequently. Bizarrely I find it helps clear my mind from work stuff and destress. I’m not alone either.

I realise there are high earners on MN. But, first of all, they don't tend to advertise it. So we only see the ones who say "I gave up my job because DH earns more than me".

Secondly, there are many, many more high earning women who aren't on MN!

I think the second child is the tipping point.

The cost of putting two children in childcare, compared with what you can actually earn is a hard hurdle to overcome.

And, supposing your partner and yourself began working in the same company on the same salary, by the time you’ve completed two rounds of maternity leave, he has likely moved up a pay grade or two. It then makes “sense” for the lower earning partner to stay home.

And it’s an unfortunate fact that a man with a new baby, and a mortgage is seen as a good bet by employers because he is motivated. While a woman in the same position is a liability because she is likely to want to leave on time to collect a dc from Creche, drop days when dc are sick, and get pregnant again.

And when you add into that mess the phenomenon of the facilitated men in their 50s, many of whom are decision and policy makers with no awareness whatsoever of the issues working women face, the odds are stacked against us from the beginning.

@Marley20

Myself and DH earned about the same when I fell pregnant, I haven't gone back to work yet due to childcare but when I do I'll have to take a lower paid role to cut my hours.

But if you earned the same why will it be you taking a lower paid role to cut your hours? Why can’t your husband do that?

Years ago I was involved in research about how many times a woman applied for promotion in comparison to a man.
In the main a woman will give up / decide she's not good enough if she doesn't get the first 3 or 4 promotions she applies for. A man will apply for dozens usually until he gets the promotion.
When I look at the women - all graduates - I went to school with, those that gave up their job/went part time / took lower pay after giving birth have ended up with low earnings and pitiful pension rights. Those who took maternity leave and went back to their jobs are now earning similar money to their partners ( or more) and have substantial pension rights.
I haven't noticed that those who worked on were noticeably worse mothers than those who gave up work ( or that their children were neglected or poorer achievers.) I guess it's all about quality time together.

I think the evidence suggests the gap opens up after graduation in the job market. Men get promoted more quickly, are more trusted, are more brazen in interviews and ask for more money and get given it. Whereas women are viewed more suspiciously and are more grateful just to have a seat at the table so don’t ask for more.

I outearned my DH all through our 20s and supported him financially while he retrained at 28. He then became a barrister and hugely outearns me, and I went down to 4 days a week at work (my choice) to have a day off a week with DC.

I have been the victim of equal pay discrimination twice in two City roles (less than male colleagues for same job/same team) but that’s different from what’s known as the “gender” pay gap. (It’s a sex pay gap, but that’s a story for another day...)

Too many useless men over-promoted beyond their actual ability bed blocking the better paid roles?

Just look at the current government!

Where does it go wrong? The list is so long.

1. parental leave (especially for dads) still doesn’t have huge take up. This I think will improve as younger generations come up
2. shifts need to be made in society where the baseline expectation is that both parents contribute equally with childcare and therefore remain working outside the home.
3. this includes continued shifts in workplaces to allow more flexible working patterns encouraging parents to continue working whilst juggling childcare/ school inset days
4. plenty of women continue to actively choose being a SAHM. I went to a great university and in my immediate circle of female friends I can list 3-4 off the top of my head who (despite getting amazing degrees and getting into some great roles in companies) quit working as soon as they had their first child. That was what they wanted.
5. men need to step up and want active hands on involvement with their children from the get go. So many men don’t do this, then end up divorced and wonder why they can only see their children EOW and pay thousands in spousal. The way to avoid that is to share childcare from the start....
6. then there is the endless stuff about promotions/ company culture/ unconscious bias/ conscious bias...

A lot of this thread is about men's expectations. My expectations for myself were very much that I would be the primary carer. I wouldn't have liked it any other way. I was pleased he didn't want to be the one to go part time. When I had my first he was doing temp contracts, so it was full time or nothing.
Husband has only just started to outearn me and the youngest is 7 but there has never been a lot in it and we've always needed both wages. We have always both had plenty time off the kids to do other stuff. Since the first started school I've done 4 days over 5, enabling me to finish early enough to pick the children up from school 3x weekly and spend the afternoon with them. We've always shared drop offs, despite us only having one car and me using it for work (til last march, for the common reason).
I think I saw what my mum had and did and internalised that.

Myself and DH earned about the same when I fell pregnant, I haven't gone back to work yet due to childcare but when I do I'll have to take a lower paid role to cut my hours.

But why? (I mean, I know why, probably) if you earn the same, then you could both cut your hours.

I earn a lot more than DH, about 3 times as much. I work full time and he’s gone part time to cover some childcare, as we don’t want / can’t afford full time nursery.

I am, pro rata, paid more than my DH (earn less overall as I don't work 5 days) and as I did a PhD I am 4 years behind him in my career.

He has stayed at one company since graduation gradually accumulating pay rises and increases for professional qualifications, whereas I have moved every couple of years with salary jumps each time. I wonder if my trajectory is more stereotypically male and his more stereotypically female.

I'd also be interested to cross analyse the data on male/female dominated professions with unionisation - you would expect professions with strong, strike happy unions to be paid more. Does that occur more in male dominated professions? Stereotyping would suggest it might, but who knows?

You have children they grow up a bit , you are in your late 30's / early 40's and you realise you are fucked.

Agree with PP who said it starts in infancy. I have 2 boys and I cringe when I see parents (usually mums) telling their DDs to not show their knickers, not get their shoes dirty, to be careful when there's no danger and that they are beautiful and kind and gorgeous and smiley. Do we say ANY of those things to boys? There are exceptions of course but they are pretty strong trends. Girls therefore grow up with a desire to please, not to be bold. And you've got to be bold to get on in a career.

I think having children is the biggest mistake a woman can make these days. It obliterates the playing field. It’s the thing that usually compromises their time and their careers.

The willingness of so many women to become SAHM therefore becoming entirely dependant on their partner is absolutely mind boggling! It very often ends in tears.

Live for yourself and don’t become dependant on anybody. Just like men do.

@sassbott I love your point 5). Men complain that women are favoured for child custody and don't see that the unfairness or discrepancy is the flipside of the pay gap/women in work issue. If you want to divide it up as you earn the money and she takes care of the kids, don't be mad when a court sees it exactly the same way.

@Iknowwhatudidlastsummer

I worked in teams where women were simply not interested in progressing higher. Thankfully, there are enough ambitious women to raise the bar, but it was mainly the young child-free WOMEN who finished on the dot, and refused to work evenings and weekends, demanded a lunch break and so on.

I always found it puzzling, there was a clear lack of drive from one gender.

Why the full shouldn't women have a lunch break? Why should they work more hours than they are paid? You say demanding a lunch break like that's not something they are absolutely entitled too.

I honestly think the problem in a lot of industries is an over inflated sense of importance many men have.

[quote Falalalafishfingers]@Phineyj really? So why do so many women give up their careers?[/quote]
We don’t
After children I reduced my hours. Not many hours and did a role that other counterparts did full time. I was more experienced and worked faster. I only did it for 3 years plus maternity leave of 6 moths each for 2 kids.
All my male counterparts got promotions over those 4 years and their careers continued to move ahead at a rate. I stagnated on same grade with minimum pay awards for 12 years until I finally got a promotion. By then others were on 1 or 2 grades above me.
In my forties I made more progress, got to very senior roles but I was well aware that my male counterparts were earning more as had been on higher scales for longer.
Then I had a second whammy when I got older than my male bosses at around 50. I reminded them of their mothers, I was difficult, I was agressive, I was headmistressy, I was emotional, I needed to calm down, I was bossy, they didn’t like my tone. All the typical unconscious bias shit. It was happening to other women too at senior positions

Ended up stressed and after outright bullying I retired early. It took me 1 year to rebuild my mental health.
My pension pays the price for this crap still.

I was the higher earner when we had kids. At first I went back to work and he was SAHD. Then after 2nd child I really wanted to get a better balance so went PT while he went back to work. Having time out of work didn't impact his career one bit, and his earnings went up and up. Mine went down. I couldn't possibly get back into my career now at the level I was before children.

So long way of saying - I think career breaks affect women's longer term earnings more than men's. And it's not the lower earner who tends to take a career break, it's women.

[quote Falalalafishfingers]@Phineyj really? So why do so many women give up their careers?[/quote]
I don't think it's as simple as that.
If being a stay at home parent was valued as much as 'careers ' then you wouldn't be asking that.

I should add I was a high earner in a senior global role in a male dominated role.
My husband had to give up work at a very early age due to poor health and I was sole breadwinner. So it wasn’t because of childcare issues or being in typical low paid “female” stereotype roles

For me I never felt discriminated against until I had my children

When I met my husband I had fifteen years of pension and a company car (exciting eh?)A full time job and final salary pension

Now I have two children (and husband) no company car, zero hour contract and no pension

Sad, but true