What proportion of mothers work in different countries?

[Bobbalina]

I am interested to find out what the norms are in other countires for the proportion of mothers who work full time/ part time / are not in paid work?

Particularly interested to know how it works out in other european countries and in the USA. Can anyone help me to find out?

You can see comparative employment rates for women (not mothers) here

In the Czech Republic, very few mothers of children under 3 work (highly dogmatic social attitudes, plus about the whole psychologist establishment seems to be against). About 0.5% of children under 3 are in childcare, although that figure hides those who use grandparents for childcare - nannies/childminders are rare).

There are also very few part-time jobs, so women with children over 3 tend to go into full-time jobs (unless they've had another child, in which case they're out of the labour market for 5-9 years or so).

There is across-the-board parental benefit of about 250 quid a month (can be drawn by either parent) plus exemption from health and social insurance so the actual value is more like 300+ a month. Recently the system has been changed so you can choose 2, 3 or 4 years (although there's predictably an outcry at 2-year-olds having to start childcare...). You can still claim parental benefit if you work, as long as you're not using a state-owned childcare facility (of which there are very few anyway).

I didn't qualify for any of it (hadn't been registered self-employed for long enough when DD was born).

Vesela that is so interesting, thank you - its exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Why do you think there is a lack of part time work in the Czech Republic?

A friend tells me that it is hard for women in Germany to work due to an early finish to the school day and that there is an expectation that if your husband has a well paid job you will stay at home...not sure if that is a generally held view or not?

Thanks Bonsoir too although it is hard to interpret the situation for mothers from the stats as I guess the number of women without children and the average age when people start a family will vary between countries.

For the UK I believe that 20% of mothers of under 5s are in full time employment and another 30% work part time fo more than 16 hours a week, 10% work part time fewer than 16 hours a week and the other 40% are not in employment.

I know that Italy has one of the lowest rate in Europe.

And this in fact is one of the reasons why our fertility rate is so low.

So what are the reasons that Italian mothers are less likely to be employed than mothers in the UK would you say, Franca?

In general, there is a high correlation between the availability of cheap childcare and the employment rates of mothers.

Here in France there are lots of means-tested crèches. The quality is not very high, though, and set to become lower if new proposals for adult:child ratios become law.

Ooooh too long to list!

I think that the main reason is that over all the Italian job market is not dynamic. Not flexible. Not competitive etc. For both men and women.

There is also a great difference between northern and southern Italy. In northern Italy the job market is better and therefore there is a higher rate of women in full time employment.

It is difficult to get a part time/flexible job.

Lack of/insufficient child care, especially in central/southern Italy. (Here in Milan we have excellent means tested nurseries, but the places aren't enough)

I remember reading somewhere that in Portugal 98% of mothers go back to work. I don't know if this ois true or not, but I can say that I'm yet to meet anyone there who decided to stay home after having worked before.

I'm not sure what the reasons are for this, but apart from cultURAL reasons I would say that it is down to money, as I don't think many families could live on one salary only.
Mind you, it puzzles me that 50% of families here can aford to do it....

Ah, yes, here in Milan I don't know anyone who stopped working after having had a child.
Milan is an expensive place to live and most families need 2 salaries. I also know lots of women who like their jobs.

Have a look here.

Eurostat should also have some statistics on this.

I think lots of German mothers work part-time. Maternity benefits here are generous compared to the UK so women are able to hold on to their jobs for longer before deciding whether to go back or not, full-time or part-time. There is a serious issue here with dropping birth-rate and the government is desperately trying to incentivise people to have more children. It seems to me though that the ones who procreate more are unemployable foreigners like me

What I would say is that the underlying attitude here is that mum stays home to child-rear and ends up doing this combined with a nice little part-time job. I know few mothers here, German or otherwise, who work full-time. The other odd thing is that up to age 6 or so, most kids get a full-day place in Kindergarten, then from 6 they go to Primary School which finishes at midday

Ah another thing about Italy.

We have a very generous maternity leave legislation. Excellent you'd say. But many companies therefore try to avoid offering permanent jobs to women in their early 30s. I kid you not.

In the south of Italy (although things have changed in the 15 years I've been here, slightly) it seems strange (to those of us with a northern European mindset possibly) to find that it is precisely those women from the more well-off families, with a good education and training behind them, who do work, while the less well off don't.

My own dp (who I am emancipating, slowly but slowly (no typo intended ) can often be heard to say...."oh, yes, I know that teacher so and so....very rich family, she doesn't need to work" etc.

The less well off, less highly trained/skilled whatever, will simply wait and become housewives, for less simplistic reasons, I think, than the simple Stepfordy belief that a woman's place is in the home, (although undoubtedly there is a lot of that as well, in my dp's parents' generation certainly)

Wages are so low down here, and state childcare only provided generally from the age of 3, that I suppose women who are going to earn about £250 a month (the going rate down here for a secretary-type job in a private firm) just aren't going to do it, because it's not worth it financially.

I'm probably the opposite of Franca down here, in that I don't know anybody who didn't stop working after the birth of their children, apart from the women I talked about above, teachers, doctors etc. (who can all afford the babysitter/cleaner team of helpers etc)

A positive thing to come out of this though is that I have found myself much happier with dd's teachers than I imagined I would, precisely because they are truly dedicated teachers who are doing the job because they love it, not because they need the money!

I agree with Franke's assesment of Germany.

Maternity leave is 6 weeks prior and 8 weeks after birth and the employer is obliged to keep the job open for 3 years.

A lot of women I know went back to work for a short time when their first child was between 2 and 3yo, long enough to be eligible for Elterngeld (67% of salary, up to €1800 monthly for 14mths) then got pregnant again.

Elterngeld was supposed to tempt professional women to give up their jobs and have DC.

Many German women go back to work part time or open their own business, doing translation, selling craftwork, jewelery etc.

re. part-time jobs in the Czech Republic - it may be that there's little demand for them, so it could be a chicken-and-egg thing.

This huuuge emphasis on the magical age of 3 (despite the recent change in the law) means that before 3, mothers are almost all at home (although self-employed people often work part-time - as I did) but over the age of 3 there's a feeling that it's fine to work full-time, in fact you probably want to work full time to make up for loss of earnings before.

Certainly by school age, the before/after school club is open from 6.30 am to 5.30 pm.

and for the over-3s, preschool hours are typically 8-4, although some children do half days.

In romania, it seems that most mother go back to work. there is no affordable child care. And school start at 7. But the grandparents, teenage sisters,... take care of the children or there is work/SAH shifts in the entire familly. (often the GP still work too). The most well off, have also their mums or MILs to care for the children or nannies (I am not sure all of them are working though or just delegating )
In France the % of SAHM is very low. Child care is affordable, maternity leave is not long and not very good, and it is a cultural no no not to return to work. I have trouble with my familly accepting me as a SAHM after a phD and 10 years of international research! Even when I tell them that I would have to pay to go to work as the salary I would get wouldn't cover the child care, they don't see why I wouldn't (btw we can't afford it)

Bucharest, it's only our "dear" government ( ) who loves to label all italian teachers as lazy (and possibly comunist) scroungers .

Reading the statistics on the presence of state funded nurseries for the under 3s is depressing, as in the south the rate is very minimal.

Yes, there isn't one in my town. 60,000 inhabitants.

I don't know the official statistics for Switzerland, but I do know that ALL mothers I know work. Most full time as part-time work is hard to find. Of course, the mothers I know are mostly non-Swiss.

Maternity leave here is legally 14 weeks, but my company "generously" gives 2 weeks before the due date and 16 weeks after the birth. After that it is expected that you will go back full time.

Will try and find out some concrete numbers later if you like.

Really Heading4Home? Most of the mums I know in Switzerland don't work. Maybe that is just the expat wives though.

I guess it does depend a bit on the cost of living, which is really expensive here. If we were paying for our own accommodation instead of having it covered by DH's work, then I would have to go back to work. We could not afford to live here otherwise.

I think a fair few of the local mums work, I certainly see them in smart clothes at school pick up times.

MmeLindt - possibly my circle is not a fair sample because I either know mums who work with me or else know them from my daughter's daycare, where the children wouldn't be unless their mothers were working. I guess I just don't meet the SAHMs.

Couldn't find any official statistics (possibly because too lazy to search in German) but was reminded of the horrifying fact that Switzerland had no obligatory maternity benefit until 2005.

Probably not at all relevant to you as you are obviously looking for comparisions to the UK but in the Caribbean (I have lived in two countries here) most mothers work, or at least try to work.

Mostly because there are not so many "nuclear" families, so women have to work to support their chidren. Also no benefits system.

Oh it's pointless to go on really because no comparision at all to the "west"!

It is true that very generally speaking in Italy it is the well off mums that go back to work.

I think this is a cultural thing, on top of the obvious, ie the ability to afford a nanny, for example (no childcare really available for under 3s that you would want to use anyway - esp in the South/Centre).

My father's mum was upper class and despite having married at 18 and had 5 children she had a live in nanny and a housekeeper and worked all her life. She was a script writer, violinist and a painter. She also directed a big theatre in central Rome. This was very normal in her circles.

My maternal grandma was working class and had 4 children and LEFT work when she got married. She worked in a factory. She was at home rearing her kids, despite having her mother live with her. This was the norm in her world.

I don't think things have changed that much from that scenario tbh.....except that women hardly have any children now lol xx