Jobs, discrimination and the 'motherhood penalty': what can be done? Come tell MNHQ what you think

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Lots of you will have seen the recent stories about the Equality and Human Rights Commission's report into maternity and pregnancy discrimination, which found that around 54,000 mothers each year are illegally discriminated against at work.

When we surveyed MNers recently about maternity and work, you told us that you overwhelmingly agree that the 'motherhood penalty' exists, and most of those surveyed (65%) believed having children had a negative effect on their career.

So we'd like to hear what you think about how both explicit discrimination, and wider difficulties faced by mothers going back into the workplace, can be tackled, over and above the enforcement of laws that are already in place.

Do you work for an employer (or are you one yourself) who is very successful at welcoming mothers back in to the workplace?

What practical steps can employers take? (These can be steps taken within organisations, between organisations, and between organisations and employees - just for starters...) Do you have any examples of strategies that have worked, either as an employer or employee?

Are there tweaks (or bigger changes) that could be brought in to start to tackle this problem in a more systematic way?

We'd really love to hear your experiences and ideas, whether experience-based or completely blue-sky.

For those of you who like reading government documents, there's also a current consultation into the gender pay gap, and we may use the responses from this thread to help to inform a response to that as well.

Thanks
MNHQ

This needs to be a shared parental problem/responsibility. This article gives you an idea of the problem.

Rob was the first full-time male in his department to seek part-time work.
"There definitely is a stigma, but I ignore it,"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31535163

The fact that this article even exists and the fact that men have to justify their reasons for working PT tells you everything you a lot about how society's differing expectations of mums and dads. The world of work is stuck in some kind of time warp.

ChunkyPickle If somebody really, really want to do permanent nights, weekends, whatever, fine, provided they are not being pressured into it. Permanent nights sounds unhealthy to me and unworkable if you want a social life.

Similarly people should be allowed - not required, forced, bullied, or guilt-tripped - to swap shifts to the limits imposed by considerations of health, safety and the Working Time Directive.

But it's dangerously easy to see people, of either gender, with no childcare responsibilities as somehow "available" to step into the breach, and that's all wrong. If you're on duty this Saturday and your child-care falls through it's obviously tempting to think that whatever the people without children are doing they can be expected to drop it - and it's wrong.

I think the best thing the government can do is join the dots between maternity leave and the free childcare places they were bandying about in the election.

We get 1 year maternity leave, then from the age of three children get 15 free hours of childcare (soon rising to 30 hours of childcare) to get mums back to work. I listened to all the coverage of this during the election. And they were baffled as to how having 15 hours of free childcare hadn't got any more women back to work. Well how about supporting those mothers so they don't have to leave work in the first place when their maternity leave ends? Why not give the free childcare as soon as they are back to work?

We heard from a Norwegian mother up the thread, but I have heard in Sweden and Denmark you can take 2 years maternity leave, then 100% free and top quality nursery places are there for your 2 year old.

This would be a perfect situation in my mind, as by the age of two a toddler is ready to start nursery, and the mother wouldn't experience the same anxiety you get with leaving a one year old, who in many ways is still a baby. This anxiety can be a barrier in itself to a mother returning to work.

Also by age of two your little one can walk and feed themselves, major milestones, that you would have the chance to support them with, by being on leave for 2 years.

Another problem mothers have is that we are expected to do a job for free (raise our own children), but if we want someone else to do it, they get paid handsomely for it. That means I know the value of what I am doing - but no one is prepared to pay me for it. I was working full-time, and paying a nanny over £2000 a month to look after my children. (significantly cheaper than nursery which was £3500 a month) I was forced out of my job, and I am also becoming a single mum, and I note that no one is offering to pay me £2000 to look after my own children.

I had an extremely unsatisfactory meeting with citizens advice where they explained that I wasn't available for work (as I have no childcare) so I couldn't get job seekers allowance, and there was no other comparable benefit for mothers looking after their own children.

Yes, Darcey - I just can't figure out the economics of working full time to hand over all my wages (and more) to someone else to look after my children. Not only that, but as you say, there are no benefits to staying home to look after them either. When we were still in England (have since emigrated to a place where they pay me to stay home and look after my children, OR give money for childcare), I thought maybe we could get a discount on our council tax, since single people living in a property could - nope. We were living on a single wage, but got no tax credits, a paltry child benefit, no carer's wage, and no other concessions. One day I decided to catch the bus to the next town to go to the farmers market. It cost 14 pounds! I almost cried, because I thought I was going to buy cheap fruit and veg and that was actually a large part of our budget. As I looked around, I realised that we were probably the only people on the whole bus paying a full fare (no wonder it was so expensive! - everyone was either a pensioner or a young person. My point is, the cost of looking after children is completely ignored when it's done for free. That is a real motherhood penalty. And I think a lot of care is also done for free by grandparents, relatives etc, but if you are in the situation where you don't have that, then it really is a catch 22: return to work and pay over your entire wage while hardly seeing your kids, or stay home and take a massive financial and career hit.

Also, I often find this conversation is dominated by people with great jobs; ones that they find fulfilling, worthwhile, satisfying. But there are a whole lot of people who don't have great jobs, who lack security and fulfillment, and we they tend to not get discussed in this, because actually, they might prefer the option to stay home and look after children if it were financially viable.

Good pointS!

It could be better for each child to have an early years budget for each family to use in the pre school years with registered providers at the times best for them. For example we might have saved our discounts for when DC1 was 2.5 and DC2 0.5 to give us the most cover for our time of double payment. Others might use it between age 1 and their next maternity leave (if relevant). SAHPs might use it for classes etc.

Dh and I are an example of this. We both started working for the same organisation at the same time (that's how we met), both on the same salary point although I have more qualifications.

14 years, two maternity leaves later - one 6 months, one 10 months and being part time - DH is now at the top of the pay scale while I haven't had a promotion for 11 years. I don't think it's a coincidence that DC1 is 11.

I've been told by my boss that I can't get promoted as I'm part time so can't possibly do as much as a full time person. I've complained to HR who simply tell me it's all a coincidence and that I should just take on more work, more projects etc. I already run a larger team than all my colleagues on my grade, I bring in far more funding etc but apparently I'm just not committed enough.

DH tries to understand and I don't blame him for his success, but it is galling to know that my years gaining qualifications, all the work I do now etc. mean nothing because I'm viewed as lesser because I'm part time and have children.

I work in the public sector (Defence). I can get 54 weeks maternity leave and have the right to return to the job I was doing before going on leave but wouldn't do this to my colleagues as they would have to run the gap! This meant I moved to a new organisation after maternity leave but they were great. In addition, you can opt not to return to work at all but this impacts on the pension. At the local level, there is a real understanding when children go sick or you do as a result of having a child! Despite the job, there are flexible options and the normal working day is 0800-1700 and most nurseries cover those times. In my current role I can also access emails etc at home (often not possible in higher security jobs unless you get your home security cleared and fitted out) so can work from home if DD is ill.

It gets harder when they are at school as the available childcare can be hit and miss. There is also a lot of travel with the job which can also be hard. Where Defence falls down is at the higher level where they expect people to attend long courses in order to qualify for promotion and these courses are residential. For 8 years I was not located with DH and had the household and childcare responsibilities. This meant that to do the promotion course I would have had to find 24 hour childcare for DD as DH wouldn't have been able to have her in his accommodation and I would have had to hold on to her nursery place too. This would have cost thousands. So my career has halted because having a child with both the husband and wife in the same career just doesn't work- someone has to take the back seat, especially if you are not able to live together. Distance learning and occasional short residencies would be much easier. I am also due to leave in the next 2 years as the idea of being sent away from DD appals me. I would do it as that's the job but I've decided to leave at my next available exit to prevent this. There is still a danger or being sent abroad in the next 2 years though and there is also the 6 year reserve service afterwards eek! I have no idea what to do when I leave.

I am fortunate to work for a very understanding SME. We have accepted virtually every request for flexible working (which has mainly been for woman on the return from maternity leave), covering a variety of compressed hours/ part-time / job share / home-working / varied hours and have been able to facilitate most changes to the original flexible working arrangements as life changes have occurred (subsequent children, kids starting school etc). We also introduced a flexi-time system which offers further flexibility for everyone, including parents that need to do ad-hoc school pick ups/ doctors appointments etc.

I realise I am fortunate, but it does work both ways - my employer has realised that if you are flexible and helpful to your valued employees (which they all are), then they will work with you and be more loyal and flexible if work requires it from time to time.
It's a shame that not all employers, particularly the larger ones, can see this and offer the same opportunities to their staff, which goes a long way to retaining your good employees and improving morale and productivity.

Also, DH is self-employed so where he doesn't get the benefits of being employed (paternity leave/pay, paid holidays etc), he has been able to change his working hours so that he does 4 days/week, one of which is a Saturday so that he gets quality time with DD (actually more than I do as I am currently, unfortunately, full-time) and reduces our childcare costs considerably.

I certainly agree that the focus needs to be on parents, not just mothers, and a complete culture change is needed so that men do feel able to request (and be granted) flexible working and balance the parenting between both parents.

With ds1 I was a manager when pregnant for a large high street retailer. Pregnancy was horrendous. No time off for antenatal appointments and I couldn't do any birthing classes. At one point they expected me to work completely on my own in the store from 8am until 12pm in my third trimester. Needless to say I refused. I couldn't go back as anything other than a manager without halving my pay and part time wasn't an option. Full time was 5/6 days a week, 8am until 6:30pm plus travel time. I wouldn't have seen my son so I chose to not return.

After a few months I had to return to work as my then partner did not (would not) work and we struggled financially. Getting a new job was hard. I would have taken anything. At one interview I was told by the interviewer (a female and a mother) that she wouldn't give me the job as I was a mother and therefore high risk. I was furious as I was way over qualified for the job.

When I did get a full time job in a bank call centre I had to do all the shifts everyone else did which meant regularly missing bed time and then not seeing ds1 until the following tea time but a job was a job. I went for a branch manager job but had to turn it down as they wanted me to send five weeks 150 miles away from home training and coming home on a Friday night until a Sunday night. They had the resources to train me at the head office locally but wouldn't do it. Not only was this hard for a parent at the best of times, as a single parent it was impossible.

Fast forward six years I am now self employed and have been for nearly four years. Great because I don't pay for childcare and see my son a lot more. With dc2 however it's a different kettle of fish for maternity leave. I will have to work as late as possible (not easy with hypermobility syndrome) and go back as quickly as possible let (not easy with a baby) because I only get the bare minimum maternity pay. Ten keeping in touch days is totally pointless as I am a retailer so can't just work for a day and then close again or ten days then close again. There is very little support for the self employed mother.

My hairdresser is self employed and currently expecting. She will be taking 8 weeks off. 2 weeks before and 6 after. She can't afford to be off any longer. On the plus side she will be able to keep all of her clients and therefore will be able to earn a full time income to pay for childcare immediately. I, on the other hand, will have to spend months building up my business again so will have to work around a baby and earn less than the maternity pay to begin with, thus taking an even bigger pay cut.

It's catch 22. I could return to a normal job now and get the maternity pay perks. I would have to earn am extra £6k a year to pay for childcare which I would struggle to do. I am opting to save like mad now so I have a fall back fund and my other half is striving for a promotion.

In my view, in order to make a family friendly workplace, employers need to be open to flexible working, home working and job shares. It comes down to the fact that mums cannot usually work the hours they used to after having a child, for example if you work a 8a.m-6.pm. day it is near impossible to drop off/pick your child up from nursery.

If employers are not prepared to allow flexibility, they risk losing valuable staff. On the other hand, if they allow this flexibility, it is likely that it will be appreciated and will encourage loyalty in staff.

Finally, if employers can afford it, they should offer enhanced maternity leave so that women feel able to take maternity leave and are not pressured to come back early for financial reasons. If mums come back at the time of their choice rather than for cost reasons they are more likely to be committed to being back at work, rather than resentful.

Obviously encouraging fathers to take time off through the new shared parental leave regime is another way in which to promote equality in the arena, so that it is not just mothers seen with parental responsibilities but parents in general.

I think the point that we know the value of childcare and pay exorbitantly for it if we want to work, but no one pays us if we want to do childcare ourselves, is exactly the relevant point here. If having children is a benefit to society at large, and if having all those who are able and wish to work IN work, then it's the whole system that needs to make this happen. £135 a week is ridiculous, that only works if housing is provided by someone else (eg a partner working for a salary; what are you supposed to do if single?).

The 6bn it would cost to support improved mat leave/pay might well be returned with extra, even many-fold, if the economy stopped effectively losing so many educated/ hard-working/creative/willing/strong potential workers. So it might not even be an extra net cost. The same goes for supporting publicly-funded childcare. It might actually work out cheaper than having so many people who want to work (or work more, or work in a job they're more suited to or trained for) unable to do so.

The population is ageing. We have to either have children, or be willing and able to import younger people to drive our economy and take care of us all when we're all old (or when too many of us are old, anyway!). I believe it's been found that affordable childcare is the one thing that reliably raises the birth rate (eg Quebec). Now, I've no objection to allowing increased immigration to fix demographic problems later, but many do - and they're not usually the lefty, social-support, fund-the-childcare folks. Sigh.

On a positive note, my own employers (HE sector) have been great - my job is by nature flexible and not assessed on an hours basis anyway, but I also had provisions allowing me to get back to the most central part of my work on return from both mat leaves by reducing other duties, and all was well. But this doesn't suit every sector or employer.

Sorry to harp on - but I'm not actually talking about the childless taking on the 'burden' of nights/Saturdays - but anyone for whom that would work better, rather than these enforced rotas which I (when I worked shifts) and people I know who still do, find annoying. I used to hear stories from my older relatives of the father of the house coming home from his day job, the family having dinner, then the wife going out to her night job - it fits plenty of people's lives to work outside of the straight 9-5

Of course you can maintain a social life while working nights BTW - there are still 2 nights a week at least you're not working. That's like asking how you manage to clothes shop if you work days!

I think the really annoying (that's not a strong enough word) thing about the motherhood penalty is that they don't wait for you to do something, they just assume that you'll be taking it easy/off work for the kids being sick and treat you as if you were already taking the mick. Men (in my experience) just don't get that same pre-judgment.

Men do need to step up and take their share - these employers who discriminate will find the boot on the other foot when their teams of carefully selected young men, who they thought they had over a barrel because they were about to become family bread-winners, ask to go part time and take their parental leave.

ChunkyPickle If somebody really, really want to do permanent nights, weekends, whatever, fine, provided they are not being pressured into it. Permanent nights sounds unhealthy to me and unworkable if you want a social life.

It is, but in a lot of industries particularly the low paid ones, people want to do it because of the enhanced pay. A role that would only be NMW in daytime hours can be a couple of quid an hour more if you do permanent nights. For someone who doesn't have the ability to command anything other than a low salary, permanent nights one of the few ways they might be able to boost their income. If their health can cope, of course.

Also means you can get the kids ready and do the school run in the morning before going to bed, allowing a working partner to get up and leave early, thus making wraparound care much easier. I know a few brave souls who get up in time to collect them as well, and catch up on sleep at weekends, but personally that's where I'd draw the line.

Mumsnet interesting article on this subject matter. If only all employers were like Netflix.www.hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/reward-news/netflix-offer-staff-unlimited-leave-first-year-parenthood/58616

I have to say that I hate working part time. I have been part time since 2005 and it's like career suicide. I have not had so much as a hint at promotion or anything. I hate watching others plough ahead too!
It's so tough, emotionally and physically, being a mother (especially when working). Mums should be paid!

Ultimately the only way the motherhood penalty is going to disappear (or reduce) is if fathers start taking equal responsibility for caring for their children and if employers start to assume they will do so. Instead of the current situation where many men and employers of men simply assume that someone else ("the wife") will pick up all domestic duties.

So for example :

• Men who have recently become fathers should be asked by their employer whether they need flexible working in order to accommodate child related duties

• I would like to see a period of mandatory (or at least "use it or lose it") sole charge paternity leave considered, to be taken after the mother returns to work. Even if it's only a week.

Agree minipie

I agree with all those saying that the only way to tackle this is to encourage/force fathers to take equal responsibility for parenthood.

I work in a male-dominated career that made huge inroads in encouraging women into the workplace. That is now going backwards again because austerity measures, which include cutting staff levels, mean our working hours have been changed. This has resulted in my habitually missing out on putting my DC to be four nights in every ten, and sometimes six nights in every ten when I have to take my share of the ten-week 'drop back' shifts.

The answer is not to change the shift patterns or allow flexi-working. The job demands are what they are. The reason it is going to affect women disproportionately and result in mothers leaving the profession is because we still live in a world in which mothers still take primary responsibility for childcare and nurture. If men were equally invested in their children, you'd still have a 50/50 mix of men and women doing the job because it would be parents who decided that the role was either compatible with their family life, not mothers.

I think the point that we know the value of childcare and pay exorbitantly for it if we want to work, but no one pays us if we want to do childcare ourselves, is exactly the relevant point here. If having children is a benefit to society at large, and if having all those who are able and wish to work IN work, then it's the whole system that needs to make this happen.

this^

Especially when so many of those who don't recognise the value of the childcare done by those staying at home to do it (whether working part-time, working from home around children, or not working at all) are in fact benefiting from it themselves. A cultural shift, as so many of others have said, is desperately needed.

I just spoke to someone I work with who has a daughter living in Norway with 3 children. And turns out the monthly childcare fee is something like £280/month... and it's 8-6. Norway has parental leave for a year, but then everyone is encouraged to go back to work. With a fee of £280/month, I imagine it would be entirely feasible for more women to go back to work - full time, and not just men.

I also have friends who used to live in Holland and over there, men and women were encouraged to have a life outside of work. So it was a regular sight for senior managers/directors of firms to leave work at 3/4pm to go back to their villages and towns to run brownie packs and football clubs and whatever else that took their fancy. Now, I don't know if this was a particularly affluent city or whatever (admittedly, they are a v middle class couple) but still, it's great to be able to do this. They've actually transferred over to the UK so live here now, but the DH still works for a Dutch company. How does he do that? He goes over once a month or so for a few days. Rest of the time, he works out of an office in their home. She also works for a European company, with offices in London and Brussels... and she works from home too.

I get that this is not entirely possible for all sorts of careers but if it is possible for these 'office-based' jobs, surely we extend such practices for other office-based jobs?

sorry, was going to add that this means that both of them can take part equally in the school plays, parents evenings etc, and the children go to afterschool club so they do get a 'full-day's work.

I also currently live in the Netherlands. The nursery fees are (I think) roughly equivalent to the UK. However the government provides tax rebates every month (or at the end of the year if you are rich enough to get by each month). It was a few years ago, but for 3 full days a week I was paying 900 euro per child per month, and getting 550 per month for my first child. The second child cost a total of 50 euro for 3 days per week. So a total of 500 euro per month (not sterling!). With the current cuts over here, this is less than what you would pay now, but there are still tax rebates. This is income linked to encourage women to work.

Maternity leave and pay are not the best, but my children were in daycare from 3 months onwards and now in after school club. You can also pay to include vacation days so you can even work during the school holidays. You still get tax back on this as well.

I have a work form home afternoon (used to be a whole day but the kids are now in school in the morning and I have enough work to keep my busy). I generally dont have a problem taking time off if the kids are ill. In my company you can use your leave days, or take care-leave (at 70%).