Losing my job because I'm a parent

[Luaper]

Since the C-19 pandemic began I have felt that the 'new normal' is likely to include a disadvantage to parents. My employer made an early decision not to furlough any employees and offered parents the option to cut their working hours - but the expectation is still there that the same amount of work as a full time employee is delivered. As such, over the past 4 months I have worked every evening including weekends to keep up whilst still trying to give my primary age school children some structure / home school in the day and normality and fun at the weekends. It has however been pointed out at work that I am less effective than my colleagues without children because I have too many distractions and answer emails at inconsiderate times of the day.

At present that are the following protected characteristics under employment law (set out in the Equality Act); age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. I think that parenting of young children should be added to this list and would ask the reader to sign the petition below.

Ask yourself this - if you were an employer would you employ a parent knowing that whilst C-19 circulates there will be frequent school closures that mean the individual has to quarantine for 14 days? And that whilst they are quarantining they will be looking after children which will mean that they cannot effectively work from home. At present there is little to prevent employers discriminating against parents in redundancy programmes and those same individuals may find it hard to find a new job. This has a serious knock on impact on families and children and is why parents as a group need this enhanced employment protection.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/319813

OP, are you a man?

@Staplemaple I don’t think I said it was explicitly a sex discrimination issue, but the two are linked. Of the couples I know who have managed more equal parenting (both before and since lockdown) it only really happens/works when both people’s work is of similar/equal economic value to the couple (and also still have nursery age children so have had access to childcare sooner than people with children aged 6-10). Once you start to get big pay disparity it becomes less common to do shared parental leave (not economically viable to have the breadwinner not earning), for both parties to work part time (cheaper for the lower earner to work eg 0.6 FTE than both work 0.8). And that’s before you get into cultural expectations of very high paid jobs being well over the standard 40 hour working week, and the fact that many women are still largely running the home alongside work. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m acknowledging that it happens. And all of this feeds into a general lack of career progression for women who have had children (and worse sometimes for women who look like they might). Once you’ve been passed over for promotion a couple of times for your male colleague who doesn’t work part time (even though you might have been clear that you would go full time for the opportunity), or because you’ve been on maternity leave recently. It all contributes to a working world in which women more generally don’t get the same opportunities as men, and we now know (there is actual data) that women more generally have been worse affected by childcare problems than men. It’s a societal problem and it will undo decades of hard work trying to redress this balance if it is not addressed.

Luaper that's a completely different petition. It's not about adding parents of young children as a protected category under the Equality Act, but about putting pressure on government to support businesses so that they don't have to lay off staff.

Much more thought though, hence it being more popular, I expect.

@Luaper it’s not reasonable to expect special treatment due to childbearing ability It’s not reasonable to protect your job if you’ve not met productivity targets, especially if the person who does get made redundant is the same person who carried your workload when you didn’t deliver. Parents already get a number of supports that childless don’t, including maternity pay, child benefits, and funding for childcare. Also in my 25 years of experience, childless workers are discriminated against in annual leave, bank holidays etc, and find it more difficult to access flexible working arrangements. You appear to want the whole world to revolve around you and your family, at the expense of others. Your proposal won’t have your intended impact, instead as others have said, employers will simply avoid employing any female

But having children is a choice. Protected characteristics don't tend to be choices. So I disagree.