Pay equality will be hard to achieve while we continue to prioritise lifestyle

[CaramacFiend]

Had an interesting discussion with a colleague last night whilst out for drinks and she made some points I've never really considered.

She pointed out that the woman often takes on the carer role as 'it made more sense due to his salary being higher'. This is no doubt true because even without the pay bias towards men there's also the fact that the husband is often a few years older and hence further along in his career. Also that men are more likely to ask for pay rises and choose high paying jobs - even more so in working class demographics where men often learn trades and women become carers etc.

So of course it makes financial sense for a family to do this. But what if the man took some of the hit and the woman continued building her career? In the long run this might even be better as the man might bounce back more easily (women may still continue to face prejudice from some for the perceived risk of them becoming pregant again).

Of course there's the issue of men not being able to give birth but the fact that only 1% women utilise shared parental leave does suggest that there's plenty of room for men to be more involved. My colleague believes that a lot of us want to have our cake and eat it.

Another colleague chipped in to say that a lot of families can't afford to take the hit on the main salary, but the original colleague said "well, that's a lifestyle choice". She said that she deliberately waited a couple of years until her salary/experience had reached the level where she wasn't reliant on her husband's salary. Obv not an option for everyone but it was an interesting point. She said that it can be a mistake to build your life on the foundation of a rich partner.

She said that she understands why people prioritise things like nice houses/areas, private schooling, nice holidays, etc, but that in many cases these choices funnel you in a direction that isn't necessarily the path to achieving true equality. She said she told her husband early on that she wouldn't be sacrificing her career and she 100% claims she would've left him had he gone back on his promise to share the leave.

I'm not sure what my thoughts are not having kids myself but I thought it was an interesting discussion. Do we end up forgoing equality for a better lifestyle?

We're taking ten months and five months leave respectively (three month overlap), and both hoping to compress/reduce our hours afterwards to have a day each off.

It's a case of not buying into the five day work week for both of us. We've had our son later than friends, expect to stick at one, and neither of us consider it a sacrifice. We're both prioritising what we want.

If you think motherhood is underrated, try fatherhood….it’s seen as completely optional by society.

For the top 10% of earners who have all those baubles you listed, yeah that's probably a choice.
For the other 90%, it's the difference between being able to pay the mortgage and buy food.
Are you really so spectacularly dense as to not understand that? Maybe you and your friend could change society by donating your big piles of unwanted cash to those women who don't have a choice about how or when they work because they didn't get the opportunities or didn't have the things society values and pays big money for. Many women don't have a career or a career path, they have jobs and that's all they get.

Doesn't the research say that in the most 'equal' societies women are actually more likely to adopt traditional roles, whilst in patriarchal societies (India etc) women are more likely to go into tech/pharma (which may be a completely separate issue tbf as this provides an escape for them through being independent).

I do remember seeing a fairly recent poll where only 40% of Swedish women claimed to be feminists, which is much higher than here but still surprisingly low.

In sixth form there are always a few girls who think it sounds great. They are often very clever. Also know lots of high fliers who said they'd never give up and it all changed when the baby was here. And those who thought they wanted to stay at home tearing their hair out after 9 months wanting to work again.

But is that because we bring up girls to a world where they are conditioned to think like this? We buy them baby dolls, prams and expect them to be kind, caring and considerate, whereas we buy boys “career” associated and STEM toys, and tell them to be strong, brave and successful.

And then we wonder why men go on to earn more, be disinterested fathers, and their female partners are left at home literally holding the baby.

Do women feel the need to stay at home because they believe they are better at doing it than their partners?

Well, it's a choice to buy a house that you can only afford through maintaining your husband's salary. That was part of the original point.

As I originally stated, this may not apply to everybody but certainly for most of the middle class families on here there is a choice in where they live and they've often chosen a naice area or prioritised things like catchment areas for good schools. Again, this is a choice.

in the language of economics, it is often economically rational to prioritise one career over the other. I read an article on this (American based) but can’t find it now annoyingly.

It is a structural problem though. I don’t think one family making a choice to make themselves poorer will make a large enough impact. It requires policy changes to make a difference (shared parental leave, corporate policies that support fathers being more active, etc). We need to properly value caring.

I don’t think women should apologise for making decisions that are right for their family. In particular they shouldn’t be expected to do it all to make up for those structural failings.

The thing a lot of people miss, you and your friend included, is a lot of women want to 'take the hit' salary/career wise when they have kids because they want to spend their time being mother

I think we should ask why so few men in the UK seem to want to "be fathers", as you put it. And that after having children.

Surely the point of equality is to increase lifestyle not decrease it. And the issue of pay equality is women not earning the same for the same work as men, not if they choose to work less.

The thing a lot of people miss, you and your friend included, is a lot of women want to 'take the hit' salary/career wise when they have kids because they want to spend their time being mother

Would this not come under the 'changing priorities' I mentioned above?

I'm not judging anyone's choices btw. I think it's just an interesting discussion to compare individual choices as they impact the societal trends we see. I think a lot of perceived inequality is actually just the result of the choices we make, whilst I also recognise that choices aren't made in a vacuum.

But definitely women wanting to spend time with their kids is a big factor in the pay gap IMO. There's already been some research that shows that childless female execs continue to outearn their male peers and are promoted more often.

I'm my friend group (4 women) and my sister and SIL the women all out earn the men. In 4 couples the men took extended parental leave (after between 6-9 months) and women went back to work. My dh didn't as at the time he out earned me and I wanted the year off. I now out earn him (I retrained) even though I now work part time. Whilst my dh is a great dad, the dads that did have more caring duties are definitely more hands on and do things naturally that my dh never would've (e.g packing napping bag or meal planning for baby).
All the women are younger than the men.

It makes my blood boil how underrated motherhood is and how the equal and feminist way to do things is apparently to be as much like a man as possible, and the discussion is around making the man take on childcare because that's equality with no thought that some women might actually want to prioritise motherhood. It's as though some younger childless women simply can't even imagine that might be something a women wants rather than something she is pushed into.

I do agree with this. I've seen it discussed on here from time to time but feminists don't usually seem to agree with the 'acting like a man' bit. Often they point out that this is actually down to our perception of what constitutes a man, which is a fair point but I also believe that the sexes are fundamentally different and that we're more nurturing than men - this can be observed in nature.

@CaramacFiend

Hmm, I still feel like a lot of women wantto marry up. Maybe this is where feminism and our modern reality don't always meet. We still view low earning men a lot more negatively than low earning women as a society, so if there is a societal influence I'd say this is likely part of it.

This is interesting: I have never "married up" or even "dated up". I'm actually frightened and turned off at the prospect of a man out-earning me and I've (consciously or unconsciously) chosen men who earn less than me. I would hate to be in a partnership where a man was calling the shots financially, it's my biggest fear.

I've out-earned every partner I've had (including my ex husband) by a factor of at least three to one. I haven't deliberately gone out looking for men who earn less than me, but I think at some level I've sought them out.

My mum gave up her career to "facilitate" my dad's career and look after kids and was miserable and trapped and I knew I didn't want that.

This has upsides and downsides. The main upside is that my money is mine (and my daughter's). I don't have to share it with anyone (unless I want to) and I don't have to consult anyone else or get their views on it or compromise what I want to do to fit in with their life. The downside is obvious: I have to earn all the money and I can't ever take my foot off the gas but it's a price I'm willing to pay for financial autonomy and I never regret it.

The thing is even in my current partnership, with a man I love and who earns decent money but a lot less than me, and whom I trust and who tries to be a good domestic partner, I'm still doing more of the domestic work and mental load than I should.

Even the most progressive men and even the men who know they are the financially more "junior" partner still at some level have a gene that tells them they are the hunter-gatherers and the leaders. It's changing, and there are some men who are genuine outliers and who genuinely see themselves as needing to play a role in domestic life etc. But very very few.

Unfortunately the impact of individual ‘choice’ tends to be somewhat small compared to the impacts of social choices.

It is a fact that girls and women have fewer paths open to them in life than men: they are not treated seriously in the trades and still mostly have the option of education, health and roles where looks are important such as customer services. It is also a fact that education and health, being public sector areas, have been absolutely hammered: wages have not kept up and are now outstripped by many predominantly male areas of employment. Part time work appears to have been reduced too and those same areas of education and health have had expectations on hours raised. It’s also a fact that wider social economic issues means more people have to work full time or longer hours to make ends meet.

I remember the 90s when both men and women were going to work part time so that both could be looking after the kids part time, which would have offered us more equality. But the option of flexibility has gone. More are simply choosing not to have kids at all, because it’s not affordable.

We didn’t “utilise” shared parental leave because I was breastfeeding and I didn’t want the stress of going back to work while pumping milk, and trying to breastfeed to a schedule. Obviously I would’ve done if it had been that or starve but it wasn’t. If men could take parental leave once the baby was a year old we would’ve used it.

Maybe the utopian situation is the facilitation of women to spend time raising their kids without suffering the motherhood penalty - I'd imagine this has been well discussed before now.

However, short of government subsidisation I'm not sure how it can be achieved. And would some childless women feel shortchanged, like there was no benefit from focusing on their career if the end result was the same (although realistically I can't see how they wouldn't benefit as job experience is job experience).

Your friend sounds very opinionated about other women's life choices

She is definitely opiniated

They were having a discussion about a significant issue. I would hope people did have opinions.

Like everyone on this thread.

I am a carer and can only work part time. Both DC has SN, the eldest is severely disabled. The absence of any support system forced me into low paid part time work. It really wasn't a lifestyle choice.

Unfortunately the impact of individual ‘choice’ tends to be somewhat small compared to the impacts of social choices.

But surely social choices are just the result of many individual choices, like trends. Or am I misunderstanding?

I also think the 'women not being taken seriously in trades' thing is overplayed. Lots of single women prefer to have a female plumber attending, for example. There's a lot of scope in this like female only taxis. My experience of working with trades day in and out is that if your work is good then you'll get on ok.

I genuinely think it just doesn't appeal to many women (or middle class men) compared to dressing smartly and working in pleasant corporate surroundings.

On SPL, both DH and I work in the civil service where it is widely offered (and we split it ourselves). But the number of civil service couples I know where the woman didn’t want to ‘give’ the man her leave far outweighs the number of couples who have utilised it. There are obviously financial implications, as it tends to be the latter, unpaid part of the leave that the man does, but it’s interesting how few take it up none the less.

Anecdotally, I was all for equality and not sacrificing my career when I was pregnant with my daughter. DH was also all for it, he wanted to be a hands on father so it seemed like it was all going to work out well for us.

But if I’m honest with myself by the time I had to go back to work I could have easily stayed on Mat leave myself. I was just starting to enjoy it (DD was 9 months) and it felt like I got the hard bit and DH had the fun 9-12 month age where she was getting easier and more interactive. We also both work PT now (4 days each) and I am envious of my friends who have high earning husbands so they can stay home a bit more. I wasn’t expecting to feel this way at all, and overall our life works well, but I suppose what I’m saying is now that I’m a mother I can see why lots of mothers choose to let their career take a back seat while their children are young. And perhaps your friend is right that the gender pay gap is sometimes a reflection of that motherly urge to be with our children.

Well, tbf said colleague gives the vibe that she thinks her way is the best way. A bit of subtle smugness. But it's nonetheless an interesting discussion to me.

But the number of civil service couples I know where the woman didn’t want to ‘give’ the man her leave far outweighs the number of couples who have utilised it.

This is what our HR partner says.

She said some women are actually a bit hostile towards the idea when she outlines the scheme.

I don’t think this 100% rings true though because actually the pay gap is largely non existent prior to having children so clearly women are making the choice to limit their career or working hours after having a family. Many of them clearly want the more traditional setup.
Personally I didn’t but that’s just the choice we made for our family.