Half of mothers end up in jobs where you don't even need A levels...makes me so cross

[wheelsonthebus]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/27/nwork227.xml

So it's not just me then.

it would never happen with men.

What is it that's making you cross?

Xenia will be along soon

perhaps some mothers don't want to pursue their high-flying career after having children and actually prefer to have a less demanding (in time and stress) job to do alongside having their children - it does happen you know.

Some jobs are really hard to do part-time or even flexibly which is why some women go back full-time. If men were trafitionally the ones staying at home to raise the kids, then the same thing would prob happen to them in that they may end up working somewhere that they were over-qualified for.

True, but why aren't there more job shares?

Exactly FAQ and if that is what a woman decides to do and is HAPPY with that choice then there should not be a problem. However it is hard to expect some employers to keep doors open in a position that really has to be done full-time.

juuule - it is that qualified women fall off the career ladder becuse employers make it so difficult for them to continue in their original jobs either more flexibly or on a part-time basis. Fine if they don't want to, but how many women want to take a massive cut in pay and downgrade their jobs if they weren't made to?

k999 - you could still work full-time and do a day or two a week from home in many jobs (but employers are often v hostile). Actually, if you were very good at yr job, i suspect you could do a full-time job in half the allocated time.

I think that K999 and FAQ make very good points.

I work on checkouts - on one of the evenings I worked nearly all of us were qualified to degree level! I would like to think my job is juat a stopgap til the kids are all at school full time, but a lot of women seem to get stuck in these jobs... It seems difficult to get back into a decent career once you step out of one, I'm not sure if it's a confidence thing or the lack of current experience in the relevant field? In my case, I never got as far as starting my career, I was pg within a year of graduating, I didn't get a foothold on the career ladder so I'm not sure I will be able to now...

I have mentally flicked through my friends and aquaintances and cannot think of one of them who decided they would like to take a lower grade, lower paid job when they returned to work after having children.

I know plenty who, having taken four or five years out, are stuck in the kind of jobs they did a year or two out of university, despite having worked for 15 years pre-kids building up their careers.

The irony is that the higher up you are in an organisation the more able you are to set your working hours and work flexibly.

Sadly there will be no progress on this issue until the pay gap between men and women is addressed, men begin to take advantage of flexible working and part time working and we stop automatically assuming that the woman's job in the family is secondary to the man's.

I think it is more difficult once you have had children. I was made redundant last September 2 months after i returned from mat leave. I had requested part-time hours which were agreed on a temporary basis, however the director made it clear that he expected me to return FT even though I my job could easily have been done from home 2 days per week.
The company I worked for has a history of treating woemn returning from mat leave poorly, a female director came back to find her job had been given to a new male employee and they made her up a role to keep her from kicking off.
The expectatons on me were to diificult with a young family i.e being expected to attend meetings in London for 9am which would mean leaving my house at 06:30 then having to explain that it was unreasonabe for me to have to get my children up at 05:30 to do that.

We now run our business and I know I would struggle to go back to my previous career with my children as small as they are

Do you have a partner, Pedilia?

iris100 - i couldn't agree more

juule-yes married

I left my job for maternity leave at one grade, came back on the same grade with same T&C and pay, was promoted within a year, and getting more qualified as the time goes on.

It is choice. Some people are happy to take a "lower grade" job than before, that is their choice and they may be perfectly happy about it.
I chose to go back to my job, and luckily people here are supported with regards to training and development.
I dont know anybody within my company who have gone on maternity leave and not come back on the same grade/pay and progressed through the company. They may do different hours, but we're lucky that p/t / compressed and alternative hours are supported.

I was just wondering if your dh could have gone part-time or changed his working hours, so that you could have carried on with your job full-time.
My dh has early starts, days away and no allowances were made for him when he had children. In fact, it wouldn't have been possible to reschedule meetings or reorganise things to fit him.

Juule- DH's job wouldn't allow part-time/flexible hours, it was something we looked at but as we were setting up the business it wasn't really viable at the time.

I do sometimes worry about being out of the fold for to long if I decide ever to go back. I still get calls now sbout potential jobs but TBH am really enjoying being at home. My jpb was very demanding and stressful and I found it really difficlut to have decene time with the children as my days were so long.

I think what I'm trying to say is that you made a choice. You decided that what you were doing at the time was expendable whereas what your dh was doing wasn't. I think this is a decision that a lot of couples make. We decided that it was better if dh continued going out to work and I stayed home as if one of us had to stay home, we both felt more comfortable if I did and it seemed to us to make more sense that way.

ElfOTTS - Is your job in the public sector?

Juule - Yes, you make a choice, but in many cases the choice is made because there is not a lot of real choice. Hobson's choice.

What about single parent families like mine? (Don't wish to subvert the topic of this discussion into comparing two-parent versus one-parent family situations,) but, for me, personally, it seems like a choice between having a full-time aspirational interesting job, and neglecting my child, versus/or having a dull, low-status, poorly paid part-time job and being there for her when she needs me, school runs, etc..

(BTW - not saying that working full-time is neglecting your child. There are of course single parents who work full time and seem to manage, just about, but, I have tried it and, for me, it was impractical to the point of being pointless.)

It is my own bad luck or bad judgement that has put me in this situation but I really would appreciate more of a choice.

I think it is a fallacy (or should I say 'phallacy'!) that all responsible, high-powered, interesting, well-paid work has to be done full-time by one person working long hours in an office miles from home. It is like some old, out-of-date paradigm that we still work by, Emperor's clothes, because it suits the people in power to change nothing (or they're too busy working to think about it). Dunno? Just seems it is still modelled on the average man's (not person's) idea of work.

With the modern communication methods we have these days: telephone, email, video-conferencing, networking, etc., etc., surely there is more scope for jobs being shared by two people who communicate with each other.
But no, we have to stick to the patriarchal-inspired model where any one who works part-time is a wuss (or a woman, same thing) and is not to be taken seriously (or paid well or given anything interesting to do).

Mini-rant.

I should add that I am looking for a new job at the moment but there seems to be very little out there. (Hence the frustrated tone.)

Skyatnight - I agree entirely with your points about working practices and I guess the only way to change them is to keep highlighting the issue so that eventually things change - it will be a slow process though. Not all employers are as difficult as the sterotypes but it is more a matter of luck than judgement as to whether you end up working for a company/boss who is willing to be flexible.

We have to remember that being in business is about making money and for small businesses in particular, trying to accommodate flexible working/maternity pay etc can be costly. Not sure what the excuse is for big corporations who have possibly already invested hugely in a woman's recruitment and training before she has children - it simply doesn't make sense that they are happy to throw that money away by not enabling women to come back to work flexibly.

I work full time for a bank and commute to London daily BUT I leave the office at 4pm every day to get home in time to collect ds from nursery, I work from home on average once a week and am able to take whatever time off I need for ds illness etc - I have a mobile phone/blackberry and remote access PC set up at home - modern technology makes it much much easier to work flexible hours we just need to push to see it used more.

I work in a male dominated profession BUT I have worked for the same organisation since leaving school (almost 20 years ago) and would like to think I am respected for my work and what I have achieved to date. I don't think it is coincidence that the higher up the ladder you are the easier it is to demand flexible choices. It also helps that my immediate boss has a young family and his wife works too so he has empathy with my needs.

I know how easy it is to do this but it is bloody difficult to see how my situation could be replicated across the rest of the organisation I work for let alone the rest of the workforce..

jelliebelly - I think you have hit upon some important factors here. About having been in a job long enough and having reached a high enough position such that you are trusted and rewarded with more flexibility in your hours.

I used to have a fairly high-status, well-paid position. If I had become pregnant and taken maternity leave while in that position, it is possible that I would have been able to continue with that job part-time or at least with flexible hours and/or the possibility of working from home.

Unfortunately, I gave up the job and moved to be with dd's father, didn't work for a while and then worked part-time. As the relationship broke down, I now find myself in the same position as many mothers returning to work after extended maternity leave or being a SAHM. That is, I am just A. N. Other mother trying to find part-time work and my previous experience no longer seems to have much validity.

So, I suppose the jist of it is that, probably, the majority of the women who are working part-time or flexibly who have a decent, well-paid, interesting job are those who went back after the statutory maternity leave period to the same job which was held open for them. Of course, there are also many women who intended to do this but who were victimised, made redundant or sidelined.

In conclusion, Xenia is right - don't give up your day job to become a kept woman or SAHM because you can never be sure that you won't regret it. And it is much simpler process to become a SAHM than it is to reverse-engineer yourself back into a career woman.