AIBU to think low-paid mums are less likely to return?

[Daydreamxdelight]

Hello

I was discussing this with a friend today who said i was wrong.

Now, before anyone says... no I dont speak for the whole population and I am not saying this applies to every mother / parent who didnt return to work after maternity leave.

So after asking how my friends friend is (she gave birth 7 months) my friend started telling me that this woman isnt returning to work as she has worked out she could get xyz in benefits / support and it works out roughly as her current wage.

I said, fair enough, why would you return if that was the case. I then said based on my own experience of family, friends and mums I know from my maternity leave, it is those in low pay / low skilled jobs who dont return to work. This is mainly because, 1) benefits tend to work out near enough the same as their pay, and 2) they work in low skilled jobs so they can easily pick up any job they so wish when they return. Ie stacking shelves, admin.

My friend was most offended. But this has been my experience.

What do u think?

But I drive. I am in a role where I reduced my hours to 30hrs per week and earn 46k. I have to drive 2hrs two days per week to my job but I do it. Yes I am exhausted sometimes when toddler doesnt settle but I get on with it. Childcare is expensive but id argue for the hours. Its a bargain. We pay 75 per day and thats for 7am to 6pm (we dont ever put in for the full day, too long)

I returned. I worked out we’d be £700 a month better off if I quit work and had a 3rd baby, this was in the 2010s. We were both low income and early stages of our career but started our family young. That was the stark reality of the benefit system. But I wasn’t that daft an unmotivated, I went back to work earning pitiful amounts after long commutes after all outgoings were considered but knew I was progressing my career. By the time mine were part way through primary school I was higher rate tax payer, owned my diary in a hugely rewarding role. I earn even more now.

I knew LOADS of women back then from different circles who took short term decisions, I knew in the long term it would pay off. (Appreciate it’s not a financial decision solely).

Nursery fees would have eaten up a lot of salary there was only one fairly locally and it stank to be honest. Actually I went back to a better role I did a degree at the university was a lot of studying but I enjoyed it. I went from a boring well paid job to an interesting better paid job.

Thats great. Well done!

Well then your partner is a high earner so you don’t need help? Why does it matter if those in a less fortunate position get help?

I dont mind people getting help but I think it should be a safety net. Not a plan to just give up work and rely on state.

The joys of being younger. I could work stupid amount of hours and look after DD solo and a bit of a social life in my early 20s Id have been too knackered to go it in my mid 30s

Maybe these jobs should pay higher wages then? Or better, more flexible childcare provided?

Now I get hangovers for days! Well, i did pre-pregnancy. I just need to look at a cocktail now and I am tipsy. Thr joys of being younger indeed!

My DDs are teenagers now.

I was a teacher before DD1 was born.
By the time childcare and travel were accounted for... I would have been paying to work, since DH earned above the threshold for help.

Parents get more help now then 15 years ago. But the principle can be the same.

Oh diddums.

Wages do play a huge part but I don't think they are the whole story when it comes to returning to work. I run my own cleaning business and we mostly do post construction. 99% of my staff are mum's to school age kids. Lots of them could get ' better ' paying work (I do pay above nwm) most of them stay because of the work environment and flexibility. If they need time off because of sickness or inset days that's ok, if they're late because they got caught up on the school run that's ok. They work hours to fit around school and many if them change hours during the holidays or take the summer off. I get in seasonal workers until they come back in September. Because I offer flexibility and understanding they in return work hard for me and I can rely on them.

There is also a lot of couples who can afford to have a parent at home, others who are over the threshold for benefits they struggle but tighten their belts for a few years. Childcare is expensive, when you are on minimum wage as a single parent it’s not always feasible to return to work.

My nursery fees are £107 a day and I have two at nursery but it was still worthwhile financially for me to go back part time. It isn’t fair I agree, however I spent a lot of time building my career pre-kids and knew i’d struggle to get back into it if I just stopped working for 5+ years. I also like that i’m not dependent on anyone and still paying into my pension pot. I don’t blame anyone in low skill, low paid jobs for not bothering to go back although I will admit I do very slightly resent my neighbours who get to sit at home all day and spend every day of the Summer holidays with their child when I am getting up at 5am to catch the train!

I got a UC top up when I went back to work from mat leave. They had changed a lot during my absence and I hated it and left 4 months later. I was out of work for 3 or 4 months and was able to claim the same benefits, I'd have been expected to find work when my child was 2 and entitled to funded childcare but there was no sanction for being out of work before that.

So you have a professional career that you have been promoted in, your DH is a high earner and you’re judging a low income mother who is not going back to work yet?
If you knew anything about the benefit system she would most likely be in a better position working P/T claiming uc than standard out of work benefits.

I suppose the cohort of women with higher-paid, professional jobs tend in the main to place more importance on their jobs versus women who are less well-paid and doing jobs requiring fewer qualifications.
So it would follow anyway that they are more likely to return and/or want to return?
I worked very hard to get to where I am now professionally and wouldn't ever
give that up, even if I won the lottery tomorrow. I returned after all three of my mat leaves, even though my high-earning (first) husband desperately didn't want me to. Urgh.
I also don't think that living fully on benefits without working at all is
OK - my kids, my responsibility as much as possible.

The system, which also includes wage stagnation (I.e. low wages paid by employers) as well as UC.

Being in work should pay but as demonstrated on this thread it really doesn't anymore.

The thing is people think of it as “sponging” and unfair but this is a policy choice. We can pay for women to work or we can pay for them to stay home. What many people want is a magic third option that is free. And for the lowest paid it never will be. We’ve admitted that in some cases it’s just cheaper to pay women to stay home (carers allowance).

If we persist in having a system where childcare is so expensive, women are going to stay home. We should be honest that this is what we have incentivised them to do. The thing we don’t want to talk about is that topping them up with UC might be cheaper than supporting them in work, and this is the real driver behind the policy. It’s more politically convenient to blame the women for the system politicians have created.

But returning was your choice. You had the option to stop work too but you chose to return because you had too much to lose if you didn’t, presumably.

If you didn’t have anything to lose would you honestly say that you would have gone back to work anyway? Why would you, unless you love your job more than your child? Most of us went back because we had a mortgage to pay and were concerned about derailing our career, but if you’d never had either of those things to begin with you’d be a fool to return.

Yes, that's why there are no female doctors or barristers with children.

What an intensely stupid comment.

I think it’s mums who’s wages are at the very bottom and mums who’s wages were might higher that end up taking time out. The ones earning less have less of an income difference once on universal credit, those with higher salaries tend to have savings and husbands who earn more so can more easily afford their life on one income and no benefit top up.
This is my no means a rule though and women chose to take time out of the workplace to care for their children for all sorts of reasons.
I earned 60k when I stopped which isn’t crazy high but it’s certainly nothing like what you would get on UC.

Agree with you, if you have committed years to studying or working hard to establish yourself in an industry most are reluctant to give that up. Where as if you have no attachment or sense of achievement in your role I suspect you might be more likely to give up and pick up a similar role when ready in the future.

I agree with you.
It's unheard of for women not to return to work in the role we do, it's a career not a job. The most junior staff are on >50k Low by MN standards, but not for the area we live in, where you can buy a new build 4 bed detached for 300k.
We have a couple of colleagues where it is the husband/ partner who has reduced hours at work post children.

It's not realistic that everyone has a career pathway with the progression to give long-term return over temporarily tight times during maternity leave/ childcare costs.

First we need a signifcant proportion of people doing low-skilled (and pay at the bottom) of the ladder for the economy to function. Ironically these tend to be roles ill-suited to relacement by AI, technology and mechanisation. They're not glamourous jobs, but they are important and you'd certainly miss them if they weren't done.

Second, not all people are academic or highly skilled and able to progress in a career ladder. There needs to be entry level jobs avaliable in the economy that people can move in and out of depending on their changing needs. If the benefits system is topping up for a functional quality of life and to enable the right to a family life, that's a humanitarian positive. (Although the cycle of the benefits system topping up inadequate pay by large companies is a seperate debate...)

Not all jobs are rungs on a career ladder, some jobs are just jobs. Not all jobs are worth the risk of delaying starting a family until the later end of your fertile years because the odds are there's little financial or social benefit to be had by waiting. Many jobs don't give you any loyalty or stability either and are just a simple means to an end.

Ultimately people do what they need to do to survive, and if there is an open choice, then they can look to long term gains if they have enough in the short term.