“The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on working mothers”

[JuliaMumsnet]

As a mother and employment lawyer Caroline Oliver, Senior Solicitor at Didlaw, explains how the challenges of working mothers have increased in the last year and some possible courses of action.

"When the Prime Minister announced school closures once again last month, many working parents let out a collective groan of despair. Like others, I had just returned to work after the Christmas break and assumed my three children would return to school to give me time to balance my responsibilities as a mother and employee.

Working mothers like me find the career versus carer juggle a challenge at the best of times. In the early days of motherhood, our careers take a back seat during pregnancy and maternity leave. Many of us return part-time and we witness colleagues leaping ahead of us on the career ladder. Due to the tightrope of balancing motherhood with a career, it's no wonder that the gender pay gap increases to 25% when we reach our 40s.

The pandemic has led to a disproportionate adverse impact on women like me. We're more likely to be employed in the caring, nursing or hospitality sectors which have been in the front line both in terms of health risk and job insecurity. Women have also assumed the major role of substitute teacher at home. It's no wonder the spinning plates have shattered into tiny pieces, along with the emotions and wellbeing of many women.

Maria Miller MP, whose parliamentary bill is seeking to enhance the rights of women on maternity leave, recently reported that women seeking employment law advice with concerns regarding discrimination has increased fivefold since the lockdown a year ago. A study by PwC in May 2020 found that 78% of those who lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19 are women.

So what employment rights protect working mums who have experienced these Covid-19 related challenges firsthand?

The first key point is that women are protected from suffering unlawful discrimination throughout the course of the employment relationship. This starts at the recruitment stage and so any unfavourable treatment during the application process would give rise to a claim against a prospective employer. This continues through to the point of dismissal or resignation. Any negative treatment relating to terms and conditions, training, promotion, pay or selection for redundancy relating to the status of being a woman, pregnancy, maternity or childcare responsibilities is unlawful under the Equality Act. Unfair treatment relating to part-time status is also unlawful.

My aim here is to make suggestions to help women ride the pandemic storm in the months ahead. Some of the following options might be available:

Furlough – this option is available, in theory, to anyone who is ‘adversely affected by coronavirus’. So women who need time away from work due to childcare responsibilities can request this. Flexible furlough is also an option as this enables you to work some of your contractual hours and receive furlough pay for the remainder. The only drawback however is that there is no right to be furloughed – you can request this but your employer may not agree. A reasonable employer who wants to keep you will.

Flexible working – you have the right to make an application to your employer to work flexibly in terms of hours, days or other arrangements. Employers must consider and respond to each request and either grant it or refuse it based on certain prescribed justifications. Again, you will find out pretty quickly how reasonable your employer is and how valued you are.

Taking leave – In addition to taking annual leave, parents have a statutory right to request parental leave or to take emergency leave. The former is an option to take blocks of one week at a time up to 18 weeks per child until their 18th birthday. The latter can be taken to assist with a short-term emergency related to a dependent. However, with the exception of annual leave which must be paid in full, parental and emergency leave are unpaid.

These are unprecedented times that call for unprecedented measures and understanding between employers and employees. For further information and commentary on options available for working parents whilst homeschooling take a look at my homeschooling blog.

If you’re concerned about how some of the issues raised in this post affect you, discuss your options with your employer informally. You also have the option to raise a formal grievance but don’t do that without thinking of the possible fallout and take advice first. Otherwise, the best advice is to seek early advice and you may wish to consult ACAS, your trade union, a maternity charity or solicitor."

By Caroline Oliver
Twitter: @Caroline2Oliver

Caroline Oliver will be returning to this thread to answer your questions for one hour on the 24th February at 1:30pm, so if you have questions for her, leave them below.

@AssassinatedBeauty

I would like to respond to the comments about increasing paternity leave not being something that men want or that the state should be responsible for.

If the state doesn't facilitate longer paternity leave then it isn't ever going to happen. Shared parental leave is fatally flawed because it requires mothers to give up their leave to facilitate men taking leave, amongst other issues with it.

You are not going to get a paradigm shift unless you make large scale changes. So the state gives men much longer paternity leave that is independent of maternity leave. Some men will take it up, and employers will see more impact than they have with SPL. As more men use it, it becomes more normal for men to be involved with childcare, and so hopefully a virtuous circle results.

If nothing about paternity leave changes, then men can't and won't take time off to be with children. Expecting women to perhaps unwillingly return to work earlier than they want in order to persuade their perhaps unwilling male partners to do childcare they'd rather not doesn't seem to me to be a great strategy. Certainly it hasn't worked to date.

Hi @AssassinatedBeauty

Many other countries are ahead of us in this regard, with Sweden being one of the best examples. To achieve change there may need to be a combination of support from government and employers as well as a cultural mindset change with parents. Let's hope the career and gender pay gap will reduce by the time our children are in their working years!

Thank you everyone for your questions - and thank you @CarolineOliver for taking the time to answer them.

Thanks!

MNHQ

Many thanks for all of your comments and contributions to this post and for having me respond live to some of your questions and concerns.

Wishing everyone all the best and here's to the spring and safe release of lockdown restrictions.

Best wishes

Caroline

@marieantoinehairnet

Yes I feel this acutely, my partner has worked through the pandemic out of the house as a frontline key worker, I have worked through at home whilst also assuming the role of caregiver/teacher/galley slave and worker.

It's no good spouting equality/men ought to do their fair share, they quite often can't. My partner had to work out of the home, I had to work in it. I was here so my career suffers.

but if you were the frontline key worker and your dh at home, his career would have suffered. It's not a problem of women, it's both parents working when childcare isn't available. Men whose career is so important to them find a woman whose career isn't as important, or they happy to be a sahm. More women should assume the role of main provider but many don't because their dh earns more. Looking at it longterm the womans salary and position would increase if the dh assumed the caring role.

I agree with some replies- if not a single parent, at no point does there seem to be any acceptance or demand that fathers also take a larger role? Surely that should be number 1, and the employer number 2?

Men won't and don't step up, they have it too good. It's that simple.

I'm alright, Jack.

@grassisjeweled - to use a well known MN trope- then you have a DH problem. Trite I know. But how can you push for fair labour laws and rights, when you can't (or don't) push for them at home? Surely to be effective, to have the workplace more effective, both parties at home need to push for the same?

Seconding any PP who've mentioned what happened with elder care. I think various associations like Alzheimer's Society ran useful surveys. One of the findings was that lockdown added an additional 10 hrs or care work per week, per informal carer (unpaid, family/friend etc.).

From my own experience and observations of others, that additional 10hrs is mostly contributed by women and was building on a foundation of care work that was mostly women. That 10hrs has to come from somewhere. Male academics have been publishing at a prodigious rate - so many women are publishing less. The consequences will reduce their career opportunities and, yet again, we will not see role models in positions of seniority.

I've seen women furloughed and even have to resign to cope with their additional load. This is setting them up for poverty in their later life and so many other implications mentioned by PPs.

Without appropriate action, women's physical, cognitive, emotional and financial resources have been eroded in a way that will affect their outcomes for decades.

What we need is work that works around children. We need more part time work at a decent rate of pay. Unfortunately there’s little of it and too many looking so they can pay us little to nothing for it and make ever more ridiculous demands in the job descriptions.

Another thing we need is retraining opportunities, real retraining opportunities that do not come with ludicrous price tags and again are available part-time. For work where there is demand for people, with wages that pay the bills.

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes

What we need is work that works around children. We need more part time work at a decent rate of pay. Unfortunately there’s little of it and too many looking so they can pay us little to nothing for it and make ever more ridiculous demands in the job descriptions.

Another thing we need is retraining opportunities, real retraining opportunities that do not come with ludicrous price tags and again are available part-time. For work where there is demand for people, with wages that pay the bills.

What we need are men that fit around children.

That’s one aspect, but work itself needs to be available. Fact is most of us need two wages these days to pay bills. Men are going to keep pushing women out while male job prospects and pay are better AND the job market continues to change and reduce at huge pace.

My work refused to furlough anyone even though DH is a key worker and it left me WFH with an 18 month old. I had no childcare as the childminder I used was in a vulnerable group.

Now they’re restructuring and all part time staff have been told that our flexible hours for childcare/ health reasons may no longer be honoured. Reading the PP I’m wondering if this is indirect discrimination?

Although DH has been working shifts, we’ve made it work (by the skin of our teeth some days!). I just feel like a robot getting through each day on autopilot.

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes

That’s one aspect, but work itself needs to be available. Fact is most of us need two wages these days to pay bills. Men are going to keep pushing women out while male job prospects and pay are better AND the job market continues to change and reduce at huge pace.

But the only way that women will have the same prospects is if they are seen to have the same back up as the men. It seems like women are going backwards, we knew this in the 90's. Maybe it's because childcare wasn't so available, especially wraparound, and there weren't a lot of nurseries. I can remember Norwich Union opening the first workplace creche ito organisations. So we expected more of our husbands, because otherwise you couldn't work. Now, (pre covid) childcare is readily available we have a lower bar than previously.

@CarolineOliver I am disappointed that you responded to none of the points that I raised. Does the financial pressure put on single mothers by a discriminatory tax system not matter? When the pandemic has clearly exacerbated these already unfair additional pressures?

[quote PolkadotZebras]@CarolineOliver I am disappointed that you responded to none of the points that I raised. Does the financial pressure put on single mothers by a discriminatory tax system not matter? When the pandemic has clearly exacerbated these already unfair additional pressures?[/quote]
For that matter, we are all ignoring the elephant in the room - the fact that this has been a restricting job market, no matter how the figures try to cover that up - we knew that in the 90s too - and that what work there is is low paid with few entry routes that does not cover the cost of living with a family in most of the country.

One thing that comes up time and time again on MN is that the woman has to bend / adapt / resign as the dad's work cannot be flexible (refuses to ask?) How do we shift this mindset?
It’s the general idea that a high paid, high powered job cannot be flexible. The man is often the higher paid of the two and therefore has less flexibility. The primary carer (usually the woman) has to switch to a less demanding job, perhaps a part time job, which is generally paid less. So the problem is that if you want flexibility you need to give up some pay to compensate for that.

@grassisjeweled

Men won't and don't step up, they have it too good. It's that simple.

I'm alright, Jack.

Agree

Is it too risky to take the vaccine while 20 weeks pregnant, has anyone had it and has it had adverse effects on the pregnancy?

@KeflavikAirport

I am an academic. There was a thing in the Washington post the other day about how women with children have lost 500 hours of research time compared to childless men. Is there a way of making sure this is not impinge on future career development in results driven fields like mine?

Interesting pieces out from Advance HE recently with a range of findings. www.advance-he.ac.uk/membership/member-events/February

Certain commitments have been made more possible for women (a small positive for some, but still an exception in an unpromising landscape) - not research, but attending conferences virtually has been raised.

Would be interested in what this could actually mean and examples from law (which statute?): "Unfair treatment relating to part-time status is also unlawful."

In HR terms this seems to be applicable mainly to the very start of recruitment and a contract. Does 'unfair treatment' apply to training options? Responsibilities between 2 job sharers (the one with more hours gets more opportunities, responsibilities and workplace involvement)? To the chance to be present at team meetings with the whole team where decisions are made? To equality of holiday for the person who works on Mondays, and benefits from, or conversely has to use leave days for, bank holidays?

In all of these cases apart from the Monday question, I have felt that I am the second class citizen, really due to work pattern.

@RomeoLikedCapuletGirls

One of the issues is that men generally earn more so when two parents WFH the priority will be given to the higher earner’s work so the lower earner will be the teacher/childcarer whilst also trying to WFH.

If the lower earner is a man it will probably be more evenly split.

Just in the experience of people I know.

Even for the higher earning women I know, they are still generally taking the burden on this.

As a mother of two boys the only way this will change is long term and with parents and women not accepting their husbands laziness,

My DS were watching my DH leaving the lions share of cleaning, cooking, planning and the mental load, while I was earning the most. My sons would grow up thinking this is normal and the pattern repeats.. I was raising lazy men

5 years ago I quit, I had it out with my DH I had a breakdown from stress, I told him either get on board as an adult or go find a flat somewhere. And I meant it 100%, since that moment and gradually over the last 5 years I can genuinely say I have an equal partner. It's not been easy but he can't apologise enough for how he treated and disrespected me.

If everyone could find the strength, mine crept up on me and just say enough is enough. Then our sons and daughters won't repeat these patterns of inequality.

As a mother of two boys the only way this will change is long term and with parents and women not accepting their husbands laziness,

Once again the onus is on mother's. There's the mental load. Right there.

thehoneybadger yep (another lone parent here). I was reading it thinking "where are the dad's in all this?!".

I resigned in the first lockdown after weeks abs weeks of struggling to juggle work and childcare. I lived off savings.

I have a new job now and my new salary is £25000 less than my old one. I’m a single parent. There was no offer of Furlough, no state support, nothing. HSBC allowed me to have a mortgage holiday which saved me.

Despite having paid higher rate tax for many years, there was absolutely no help for me when I needed it.

If I hadn’t had savings. I would’ve lost everything!