Student in need of help - How maternity Rights Impact on women's success at work

[Studentinneedofhelp]

Hi,

I am currently conducting my MSc Dissertation on 'Have maternity laws gone too far to the point that they are now becoming counter productive and doing more harm to womens careers than good?'

I will shortly be writing my questionnaires to send them out to both employers and female employers, however before I do this it would be great if to get an idea on the sorts of questions I should ask.

I would appreciate it if I could get some of your views and experiences about maternity leave in the work place.

Thank you

Hi student.

I'm not sure how maternity laws have gone too far and are now counterproductive. What have you come up with so far?

I'm currently on maternity leave and plan to go back after a year.

I honestly thing that going on maternity leave for up to a year does set you back if you're a career minded person and are doing well. It's easy to get out of the loop (I'm such a person). People adopt a different attitude - well they did with me. I was seen as a high flyer but getting pregnant, I could almost sense the disappointment of my (childless and female) managers.

When pregnant I had to be careful to be seen to be doing my job. Being pregnant is not an illness, right? Well I had to hide any sickness/tiredness etc and make damned sure I met my deadlines.

Anyone going on maternity leave is talked about with rolling eyes - as if we're milking the system and taking a year long holiday I got quite annoyed at comments about daytime tv etc etc - how does this sit with people who loathe non working households etc etc?

I also find it outrageous that men only get two weeks paternity leave - how exactly can dads be more hands on (how often do we hear about absent fathers) if the maternity/paternity laws continue to support a sexist "women do childcare, men earn the money" attitude.

Sorry, rant over!

Interesting title you have chosen, seems you might have made your mind up already about the answer. Also maternity leave was never about promoting womens careers, as I understand it it is more about the government trying to find a way to keep mothers at work to increase tax revenue oh sorry so that their valuable skills and experience were not lost.

It may also be a somewhat simplistic view of what poses a barrier to a womans career.

Once many women have children they simply find they are not as career minded as they used to be, not probably because of any reduction in their capability, but purely because the logistics of trying to juggle a DC, household and job are somewhat trying and sometimes treading water at all three is about the best that you can hope for. Actually substitute many women for myself as I'm sure everyone else has it sussed just fine.

What I would find interesting is to interview a range of age groups and men as well as women as that way you would get the experience of women who didn't have the option of 12 months maternity leave versus those who did plus the opinions of those without children.

My personal view is that mat leave does have an impact on your career for at least a couple of years after you return if you choose to take the whole year. However companies are hungry for good people who are prepared to work long hours, so if you go back full time and throw yourself into it, then it probably won't have a huge impact long term.

I think its a great idea for a dissertation hope it goes well.

Not much to add except....what was there before? No careers for women at all.

Student,

As others have said, your dissertation title sounds rather as if you have made up your mind already. Also, rather as if you are compartmentalising this as a 'woman's issue', if you don't mind me saying so. Do you intend to look at the broader issues of whether maternity leave has become such a 'problem' because only 50% of the workforce can do it - so there are 'safe' employeees (men!) and 'unsafe employees' (women!)? Also whether women actually care if it harms their careers, or just value being able to have both at all (I couldn't give a stuff if maternity leave has dented my prospects, but value the fact that I could go back to work).

As I'm sure you know, this type of debate is a current favourite amongst "ooh, I'm so feminist me" female columnists, normally based on a shaky or incomplete grasp of employment law. For example, DH gets sick of me ranting every time I read a column where some journalist goes on and on about how it's counter productive that you can't ask women questions in interviews about how they will balance their work and their children. Actually, you can ask these questions. It is perfectly legal to ask about balancing home and work. The problem, and the discrimination, comes because it's only women who get asked the question. And only about children. If an interviewer routinely asked all candidates how they would balance work requirements and any personal commitments, it would be ok. But no-one ever asks the Dad of the one year old...

SO, the first thing I would say is to make sure you get a very thorough grasp of the employment law itself first. Read up on Directgov, find a decent legal textbook, come and ask questions on here if you need to. Don't get muddled up between maternity pay (costs employers naff all, especially small ones) and time absent from the office on maternity leave (the real issue).

If you are aiming to build a suggestion for improvement on the current situation in your thesis, do not fall back on the easy assumption that, if leave were shorter, women would go back sooner. I, for one, would not have gone back at all if leave hadn't been at least 9 months. So I would suggest that your questions cover areas such as whether employers would rather have leave or lose people, and ask women what they would have done with shorter leave. Also try to reach a broad spectrum of society. There is a tendancy to focus on the middle class, middle income mums and jobs, who can take 9-12 months and afford to do so. That's not the reality for those on low incomes and it would be interesting to think about that - is maternity leave more resented in less skilled jobs where the position could be easily refilled, or more in a skilled job where finding a replacement is harder (but therefore the employee may be more valued). Is this apparant 'problem' of long maternity leave really an issue across the population, or do most mums return to work quickly.

Hope that helps. I would love to read a sensible and well researched piece on this issue, because so much in the press is so hysterical. Good luck!

Hey,

Thank you all for your repsonses so far. As some of you have pointed out my question is a little suggestive, which is my fault for how I have worded and phrased it. So thank you for pointing that out and that will be changed.

I am aiming to send the questionnaires out to both male and female employers, who both have and don't have children, to see if attitudes to maternity leave change depending on whether they have been in the situations themselves.

I am also concentrating on small employers, because I think it may possibly be more of an issue for a small employer who may not have knowledge of employment law etc. Have any of you worked in small firms? How did you find this?

I was only originally going to invterview a small number of women who have/are on maternity leave now but as some of you have suggested, it would be good to get a wide range of opinions, not just from employers but from those who work in the firms aswell.

Thank you so much, this is really helpful information, please keep it coming

I have been on both sides of the desk in a small firm. First I was an employee who went on maternity leave at the time my bosses were two mid fifties males one great one not so great I felt great pressure to return to work early and to soldier on when heavily pregnant (have you ever tried calving a cow when you are 6 months pregnant).
6 Years on and now I am the boss we are well up on employment law. I have one member of staff on her second maternity leave we have used KIT days to benefit her and us, we see her as a valuable member of the team and her current contract is for flexible working around her firefighter husbands shifts.

If I was to write a couple of questionnaires, so I can get an idea of women's views would some of you be willing to fill them in?

Do you extend the 'small employers' to nanny employers who have one employee but are at quite a high risk of that employer going off on maternity leave?

I think it's always going to be a personal choice and more women will return to work now they have the option of staying off for a year than if they were forced back earlier.

I am coming to this with a slightly different perspective.

The UK has the longest working hours in Europe. I also read somewhere that the long working hours result in people working inefficently, they spend many hours in work, but because the working days are so long most people take it slow in the morning to ensure they have enough energy to last them the whole day.

When I had a career job, before children, I was expected to be at my desk 9 am, and I could rarely leave before 8 pm, usually between 9 and 9.30pm, and the senior management, male and female were still at their desks when I left the building. It doesnt take long to burn out. And it goes without saying that keeping a job like this, even if the money is good, and the career prospect is good, is difficult when you have children. Some do, and employ nannies and housekeepers.

What I have seen in the UK, is that men stay on working longer hours, while women dont. This naturally has an impact on the sort of jobs women do when they return to work, IF they return to work after maternity leave.

I currently live in Norway, where standard working hours is a 35 hour week. Most people, even in "career jobs" leave work between 4 and 5 pm. Nurseries and Schools have a wrap around childcare, nurseries open at 7 and close at 4.30 or 5pm. Schools have their own inhouse before and after school club, which is open from 7 am and again until 5.30 pm. This takes away the logistics problem of juggling nursery/preschool and chilmdinders and nannies/au pairs. Parents drop their children off, and pick them up after work. It is still so early, that it is possible to have quality time as a family before bedtime, or to go to the gym, or catch a show without problems.

People dont get less done in work, they get down to work and focus the entire day, knowing they have to have cleared their desks by 4/5pm.

The standardised working hours, and the general family friendly setting of working life means that leaving work early is not a "motherhood problem", which has a huge impact on the way woman and mothers are seen as valuable contributors to the workforce.

Maternity leave here is either 10 months at 100% of salary, or 12 months at 80% of salary.
Maternity leave cover is seen as the best way IN on the career ladder, as the law says that a woman on maternity leave has the right to return to a job on the same level doing the same sort of thing as she did prior to maternity leave. It also suggests that the person on maternity cover should be offered a similar position within the company, whenever possible. Nurseries are subsidised, so a full time nursery place, with lunch and food/snacks/drinks, cost just £250 per month regardless. Childcare provisions are really good. It is therefore taken for granted that a woman returns to work after maternity leave, there is no reason why she shouldnt.

A healthy work / life balance has been achieved, and the short standardised working hours is the key to this, together with a good maternity package and good childcare tailored to working families.

It should also be said that Norway is a country with a small population and it is necessary to keep people working.

What I am trying to say is that part of the problem in the uk is long working hours, inefficiency in work due to the long working hours, a not very child/family friendly attitude overall, and legislations regard to maternity play a very small part.

Shorter working hours will be one of the key elements to stop women being discriminated in the workforce, and to ensure women can return to work after having children.

These articles are quite interesting:

working conditions in the european union - the gender perspective

working time and work intensity

All work and No play - The Guardian (written by a stand up comedian)

TUC - Long Hours Culture

I agree with 2010aQ - if only we could embrace this model in the UK. The 'issues' around maternity rights in the UK are basically about employers and industry being unwilling/incapable of viewing work outside of a box created in the 70s - or 50s, or who knows, 1850s. Maternity leave is a brilliant way of people getting career opportunities, as cover, and companies discovering new contacts and talent. I have worked in the arts and media: in both of these industries a year is a not unusual length of time to stay in a job whatever age/gender you are, (job for life being over in almost every other field too) so the 'problems' of job churn and recruitment costs that are usually propagated by businesses around maternity leave is just nonsense. Working mums tend to be loyal to their employers as once they've got their arrangements in place they don't want to have to change them, but they are perceived as being disloyal - but in my experience, they only leave because they are persistently overlooked for training, promotion and interesting projects, because they are perceived as being a liability... it's a vicious circle. Part-time workers and job shares have lots of benefits for society at large, and tho flexible working practices can cause issues with employers this is largely because they are not discharging their own responsibilities around them - ie don't institute proper policies or have the experience/training to manage or recruit for this type of work effectively. This has been the case at an arts employer i know of who initially were really open to job sharing for returning mums; of course they now want to clamp down on job share because of their 'bad' experience which were pretty much down to mismanagement and not preparing for such a radical change in working practice. Wouldn't it be better to learn from it and institute proper management procedures or even change the way they distribute workload to a project-based scenario, rather than managing sector areas? The job market is changing and employers have been behind a lot of this change (eg, contract working), but they don't want to have to invest in the necessaries to make the most of a totally flexible/family-friendly workplace. And this is why workers who don't currently make use of flexible working practices feel the buck is passed to them. Finally, on a philosophical note, it is only because almost everybody persists in seeing the working world as designed for a single/non-family-responsible worker's lifestyle as the objectively 'right' one, that there are problems in becoming more flexible. Other countries show that you can manage perfectly well with very different working cultures.

From an employers perspective (sort of)
my dh is a headteacher, since he took his current role he has had at least ond member of staff a term announce they are pregnant. He has does all the right things but it's an extra headache to sort out staff and if it's a TA there is no insurance so the school is out of pocket. Due to the work it tends to be a female dominant environment and new employees tend to be under 35 so this is more of an issue.

No idea what the solution would be to this btw!

In my work in the last year I have worked with 2 people on maternity leave (so actually not there) and we don't get cover for them. Both people got to the end of their year and didn't return so we were left with noone for another six months whilst recruitment took place. I'm actually dreading telling work I'm pregnant as I know how short we are and I know they won't get cover. This is public sector as well btw.

Nymphadora - i feel like you've just justified everything i've said! The sector you work in doesn't provide cover for maternity leave and so everybody dreads working with somebody pregnant; your husband's sector doesn't insure TAs, a low-paid job done largely by women, so they are in trouble when they go on maternity leave ... why is this considered a 'normal' and 'good' way to do business? And strangely it's the pregnant women who get the blame for being a 'problem'...

We run our own company (in the uk and in norway) - we dont employ any staff anymore though - everything is outsourced.

When I went on maternity leave in the uk, the leave was short, the amount of money paid by the government as maternity pay was a pittance, it is no wonder people who dont have the backing of a large firm and have negotiated a maternity package wants to return to work as soon as they can, as it is not (at least it wasnt) possible to make ends meet on regular maternity pay. But then, they encounter the problem of high nursery fees, a full time place in london was £600 per month, and on a low salary, this is a problem. The government is countering this with tax credits, but the amounts are far from enough.

Many people, especially if married, cannot afford to return to work, so the most viable option is to be a stay at home mum. It is then quite hard to return to the work force years later when the children start school.

If I were to have a third child now, as an employer (of myself), the state (in Norway) would cover my entire salary if I opted for a 10 month leave, or 80% of it if I opted for a 12 month leave. Strictly speaking, the state would pay my 40 k salary (if I had a 40 k salary ). This means that my business would not suffer, I would get my pay, and the business could hire somebody to do my job. In our circumstances it would not be possible to offer my maternity cover to continue working for us. But hypothetically speaking, this would be the scenario.

Omaoma - and these are local goverment jobs and are supposed to be 'valued'!

We do get a (slightly) above minimum maternity package though

magic innit? sigh

I can't wait to read this entire thread in depth. Have maternity rights done more harm to women's careers than good? In my case, having children has done more harm to my career than anything else!!

After the birth of my son, I remember feeling that I had been conned into believing the myth that women and men could compete in the workplace and that somehow this was a good thing! I regretted the seven years I had wasted on a university education and further qualifications and the intervening years I had wasted battling for position in my career. Obviously hormones were involved but a part of me wished that I had gone to finishing school, bagged a wealthy husband and knew how to make curtains and do flower arranging.

After a few years of dreaming of a simpler life, my DH was offered a job in another location which would allow us to move to a cheaper area and me to give up work. I resigned from a job I loved, was good at and well paid knowing it was the right thing for me.

There are days when being a SAHM is the crappiest job in the world and it's been really hard financially. I think that if I had any idea how much hard work having children was going to be, I'd have carried right on climbing that greasy pole and given the whole thing a wide berth. Now, though, I can't imagine going back to work and missing out on being the one who gives them a hug to be brave in the morning and the one who hears how their school day went.

If I had my time over, what would I do? Who knows......

Deirdre, what depressing conclusion one may draw from your post: University degrees wasted on women. UK society, when it comes to women and careers, seems to be thoroughly stuck in the 50's.

Thank you all for your input so far. Getting a number of ideas and issues that I hadn't thought about previously.

The web articles that you put a link up to quintessential odyssey, were really useful.

Please keep your opinions

2010: I wouldn't have denied my 18 year old self the chance of forging ahead in a male dominated world (of engineering) and enjoying a full education, nor would I deny my 30 something self the right to stay at home with my children.

If I'd had my children earlier, I could well be out there now making my mark in the working world, who knows.

My Mum was frustrated with staying at home and is of the "down trodden women" brigade who encouraged her girls to get a good education but then frowned when we went back to work after our DC's were born.

I don't know what the optimal solution is, but wonder if maybe we do really have it all - the choice to put our careers first, last or somewhere in the middle and the consequential compromises that each of those option brings!

FWIW I'm 23 and want to have my children and be starting a career in my early 30s, when a lot of people seem to be retraining - that way I'll have a solid 30 years. Luckily DH's job for the next 10 years is compatible with this plan and not very compatible with me having a career!

Frankkinaround - I think you might have it the right way round!! Good Luck!!

I want to live in Norway.

omamoa - But surely the lack of cover is not caused by maternity rights, but by bad management. The employer can claim back the SMP, so employing a cover is not leaving them out of pocket.

FWIW I think your initial approach will leave you in a very binary position because there is already so much evidence and you may struggle to make your research shine. You will find that there have been many many comparisons across different countries, particularly with regard to the US which has almost zero maternity rights yet has more high achieving women than in many other countries. It will be difficult to focus on just the UK because of the overwhelming volume of evidence about how other countries do it differently, and you may end up being forced into doing a beta-analysis of this, which doesn't sound like your intention.

The more interesting question (if you want to look at the UK) might be "to what extent have cultural expectations failed to adjust to changes in employment law with regard to mothers in the workplace?" which I think is what you actually are aiming to do. This will be easier to control and will allow you to delve into the qualitative side. You can then - if you get the urge - also investigate the effects of different types of legislation and explore whether the less black and white ones (eg flexible working) are more successful in adjusting cultural behaviours than the more formulaic ones (eg maternity). You might find for example (hint) that laws that encourage a behavioural change and where there are potential upsides for employers can be more successful than those that force change and have only a 'cost' effect.

Thank you for the help there. Before you start your dissertation it always seems so easy to think up a question...and then you actually come to write the question and it isn't so easy!

I really do appreciate all the feedback, it has been really helpful so far and hope to continue getting further input and comments from you all