This idea that women need to get married for financial protection is bizarre

[NewFem]

I’ve encountered this view so many times here and it doesn’t make any amount of sense to me. Can someone please explain this to me how it applies to modern life?

Girls go to school and receive the exact same quality of education that boys do.
Girls, I read outperform boys in SATs, GCSEs and at A-level.
Girls attend university at higher rates than boys do, across most ethnicities in the UK.
Girls outnumber boys in highly paid professions like medicine.
Girls also study science, technology, engineering and maths subjects at university in increasing numbers.

Women are perfectly capable of being educated, having a high salary and making a living for themselves. I know plenty of women who are homeowners by themselves and manage to buy a house individually with no help. So why is there still this idea that we need men for financial security. It doesn’t make sense.

When it comes to children and childbirth, most women don’t give up their careers so protection doesn’t apply to them either. I looked this up, in 2019, 75.1% of mothers in the UK were in work. In 2020, 71.8% of mothers in the UK were in work.

In 2019, only 28.5% of mothers with children below 14 years old reduced their working hours to accommodate childcare. This means most women (71.5%) did not reduce or limit their working hours. So it isn’t true for the majority of mothers that most women give up working after they’ve had children or that a man’s career remains unaffected and a woman’s career declines because of childcare. Therefore we need marriage to have protection.

At least this is my opinion based on data and my own life experiences. Open to hear other points of view though

Out of all the women I know, none work full time with school and under aged kids. Due to the expense of wraparound childcare, the lack of full time jobs with flexible hours, commute time, needing to be available for school holidays or the expense of holiday clubs. All my female friends either reduced their hours, gave up work or changed to jobs that were compatible with school hours or part time and flexible.

I tried to go back full time (while he was in nursery 7am-7pm) and nearly had a breakdown trying to manage work with childcare and family priorities. DH is by far the higher earner so me carrying on FT made little sense. Once they start school you find wraparound care isn’t always available or on-site, or is 7:30-5:30 which doesn’t work if you have a commute and no flexibility.

The reality is it is very hard for two parents to maintain and push on with careers at the same time and once the pay differential is there, it becomes much harder.

When my husband and I were mid 20s we weren’t that far off each other in terms of salary but different sectors where my financial package would always be somewhat limited and his had potential. His salary grew enormously at the point I was TTC and through my pregnancies, part-time working etc. the years in the 30s can be critical for career development but often coincide with babies having longer-term implications. I’m probably a level lower than I would have been without children but honestly it isn’t the right time to try and push on. Working 0.8 gives me access to interesting roles but limits my chances to push upwards but that is ok as I don’t think it would enhance our lives at the moment. In contrast, I’m picking up the emotional load re children and my husband is pushing on. Our balance isn’t quite right but we would topple over if I took on a bigger job.

Women get pregnant with all the physical implications of pregnancy and childbirth. They them often need to downgrade their job in hours/progression or both to meet the practical and emotional needs of their children. When the children are ill, it's often the women taking the primary burden of caring responsibility. I find it quite incredible that none of these things has occurred to you. They are also generally the primary carers for children following separation.

Raising children often involves sacrifices professionally, and in our society it's most often the woman who makes those sacrifices.

I still work full time, in the same job as before DC. I wouldn't show up in your statistics. But having a child still has an impact on my career.

I gave birth, so I took 9 months maternity leave (DP took 1 month shared parental leave). Most nurseries only accept babies from 3 or 6 months, so most people have to take that maternity leave. That's an effect on income and potentially progression.

DP is a doctor so can't always leave work on time. Some people may see that as putting 'work before family' but you can't walk out in the middle of treating a medical emergency. This means I need to be able to pick DS up from nursery, so can't take extra evening work. I've also reduced my work-related travel since having DS. These things don't immediately impact my salary, but they won't look good when looking for a promotion.

@BoudecaBains

. Even then there are pre-nups available

Prenups are not legally enforcable in the UK so not worth the paper they're written on. Ultimately, if you have sizeable assets to your name you would be mad to get married in the first place.

Not quite......

UK courts aren't bound to follow a pre-nup but they will take them into account. However they also consider the law and what is equitable, and can deviate if they consider it preferable. So if there has been a significant change in circumstances it may not still be fair to follow the pre-nup.

The beauty of marriage is that the courts can take a flexible approach and take all of the circumstances into account. They do not routinely redistribute pre-marriage assets without good reason and spousal maintenance is unusual.

Most people would be best served overall by getting married. There are other factors to consider beyond a possible divorce settlement and you have to consider the possibility of future change, death, ill health, disability, children, inheritance, windfalls etc. For the very wealthy or those with complex circumstances then individual advice would be sensible, but for the majority marriage is the most efficient solution. Especially where children are planned.

@ViceLikeBlip

Another way to resd your stats:

Approximately 1/4 women quit work altogether after having children.

Of those that do go back to work, approximately 1/4 don't go back full time.

That's a very significant minority.

And many who go back whether full or part-time will take the Mummy track. Maybe intentionally, maybe willingly, or maybe not but their career will not follow the same trajectory because they have to consider childcare, the school run, family life etc.

Some will go back to a lower paid job, some will go back to the same job but not be promoted at the same rate.

Honestly I can't think of any woman I know personally or professionally whose career hasn't been affected negatively by children. Some more than others but they are all affected.

@JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon

Honestly I can't think of any woman I know personally or professionally whose career hasn't been affected negatively by children. Some more than others but they are all affected.

This is undoubtedly true.

Most people would be best served overall by getting married.

Definitely not true in my case. If I were to marry my current partner (who earns about two thirds of what I do and doesn't own property) and we split I and my child would stand to lose half of a house which I worked hard to buy, all my savings etc. My DD could lose access to her inheritance. He's not the father of my child and there's no impetus really on either side to get married. But it would be financial suicide for me to do so.

My situation isn't a majority case but it's more common than you would think reading these boards.

Not intended in a patronising way but I imagine @NewFem you're quite young. I was naively optimistic that the world was increasingly equal when I entered adult life and I've come to realise that this illusion of equality actually undermines us and we need to be vocal about the challenges. You're looking at the stats very optimistically. Rather than thinking of it from the proportion of women who are disadvantaged relative to men. Not just in their earnings, assets but also pension savings. Women make more sacrifices for their family and then to put more of their money towards this, whilst men make much more of their own provision. Women are discriminated against in the workplace. Whether you take time out or not, employers discriminate and this is reflected in less opportunities and less pay. Sure if a woman is the higher earner or has existing wealth then the protection of marriage may be less important but this is also rare. I feel in our strive for equal opportunities we've sort of inadvertely screwed ourselves by ending up in a position where we have to do everything that a man would do whilst also shouldering the lion share of caring responsibilities. Rant over

Agree with others. I was sidelined because I was married and of child bearing age. I took 2 years out for mat leave during which i missed out on a job i was promised. I was made redundant before my 2nd mat leave and had to take a step down and a pay cut to get a job that would work around the kids. I then worked part time for over a decade, my boss wanted me to succeed him but as soon as i said i wouldn't go full time that was shut down.

Time and time again decision have been made that have limited my career and earning potential, sometimes by me sometimes for me. That wouldn't appear in your statistics. My husband has never had that. You are very naive OP.

My friend, God rest her sole. Was terribly ill in hospital, was cohabiting with her girlfriend for over 10 years. They were saving up to get married, saved in her account, didn't have a joint acc. Her partner turned up at the hospital to her girlfriend getting given her last rights (family religious, girlfriend not as was gay and stunned by family because of it) and a DNR put on her file. No conversation was had with the partner, she had to sit, while her girlfriend squeezed her hand, not wanting to die, but unable to communicate, but did. The family, then emptied all bank accounts and organised the funeral, with no mention of her partner in the service. It mentally broke her partner after at how callous they were. Being married would have allowed her to have a say, rights to how her girlfriend was treated. Something she didn't have because she wasn't.

I'm in my 40s

I know plenty of couples where men and women work but ime the man continues on the same trajectory but the woman does a job that is flexible with family life so sacrifices earning capacity to do that. For example a lot of Teaching Assistants are mums who earned more in previous jobs but stay in a role that pays so little that you don't pay tax because it saves on childcare.

Don't forget that a lot of grandparents enable parents to work. So a grandma doing childcare while parents work might have a husband/partner who earns so that she can do that for her child(ren) I was a trailing spouse for my ex when he worked abroad. Working abroad advanced his career projection considerably and that option was made much more pleasurable because I also came along with the kids.

If you end up having a child with SN then you can't get childcare because of cost and a lack of childcare providers who can cope with SN. Marriage is a reasonable insurance policy in this instance.

If you've been here long enough then you know that many men aren't financially fair. For example they may earn 3 times as much as their partner but only pay 50% of the bills or they don't think to pay more during maternity leave because a woman's income has crashed. If a woman left her financially abusive h, she'd at least get CM from him.

I think you need to get sone stats on mens average salaries and women’s average salaries Also on where women and men who start their career at the same time with the same qualifications sit on the career ladder after 5 years, 10 years etc.

This. ^^ There may be some women who would be better off not married, but there are many who are not. And, of course, the next of kin thing in terms of making important decisions for your spouse if they can't do it themselves.

I’m not sure I quite believe the stats, I work in a massive company and around 50% of mothers if not more have drop their hours from a childcare pov / wanting a better work life balance. While I don’t know if any fathers who have done this

What's the matter OP?

Won't your boyfriend marry you?

@simpledeer

What's the matter OP?

Won't your boyfriend marry you?

You sound nice

@Loopyloulou007

My friend, God rest her sole. Was terribly ill in hospital, was cohabiting with her girlfriend for over 10 years. They were saving up to get married, saved in her account, didn't have a joint acc. Her partner turned up at the hospital to her girlfriend getting given her last rights (family religious, girlfriend not as was gay and stunned by family because of it) and a DNR put on her file. No conversation was had with the partner, she had to sit, while her girlfriend squeezed her hand, not wanting to die, but unable to communicate, but did. The family, then emptied all bank accounts and organised the funeral, with no mention of her partner in the service. It mentally broke her partner after at how callous they were. Being married would have allowed her to have a say, rights to how her girlfriend was treated. Something she didn't have because she wasn't.

That’s so heartbreaking your poor friend.

What is TAAT?

There’s working and working as they did before children. Most women I know don’t work to same extent they did before or chose ft roles with flexibility that pay less.
You may set off with intention to stay ft but life happens.
Womens health is damaged by giving birth. Babies are born with disabilities or are diagnosed with conditions that mean many medical appointments and often no suitable childcare.
Marriage contract provides mechanism to reflect contribution woman has made to family life if the couple separate.

@Chunkymonkey13

I’m not sure I quite believe the stats, I work in a massive company and around 50% of mothers if not more have drop their hours from a childcare pov / wanting a better work life balance. While I don’t know if any fathers who have done this

The report I linked did say that high earning women are disproportionately hit harder by the motherhood penalty. So the stats definitely don’t tell the whole story.

I work in a female dominated profession and there are many of us with children under school age and none of us work full time.

We are not allowed to apply for promotions because the next pay band requires you to work at least 32 hours a week so our career is affected that way too.

I went back full time after my first son and it was really hard work, I was exhausted a lot of the time and my shift patterns meant I could go two days without even seeing my son.

When I had my second son I dropped my hours to 25 to make life easier for us all, and my take home pay reduced by £500 a month.

Three years down the line I have changed my job to a new role primarily because it is perfect for me but also because it makes life a lot easier which regards to managing the needs of the children, but it means I have taken a further £300 a month pay cut (in terms of what I bring home).

Throughout the last 8 years I’ve had long periods of sickness leave during both pregnancies, two lots of maternity pay and then reduction of earnings by reducing my hours, loss of earning potential (due to not working enough hours for a promotion) and then a job role change resulting in further reduction in my earnings - and during this time my husband’s career has absolutely soared.

I’m very grateful that we are a legally bound team.

You sound young, OP. I also thought the same as you until my late 20s and reality (not just mine, but those around me) started to hit.

We were all so fabulously equal during university and then as soon as we entered the work force, started thinking about families etc everyone around me started fitting neatly into their gender roles to an extent for all kinds of reasons.

Some protections like bereavement support allowance (widows allowance) are still only payable to married people. So a lump sum and a cash payment every month whilst you grieve. Yes you can obviously take out your own life assurance too but lots don’t. That’s protection that many don’t think about but is a decent financial help if he dies in a car accident on way home tonight.

My friend got married shortly before her husband died. If she hadn't, she would not have received his pension benefit. They had been together 30 years and had raised a child together. It most certainly helped her financially.

Quite apart from that, in the event that one parent dies, if they were married the surviving parent gets a significant pay out from the government.
@snacksizeraisin
What's your definition of significant?

I brought up my son alone and have a house, pension, well paid job. There is no way I'd get married so some bloke could walk off with half my house and pension.