Does it pay to be a working mother?
From the phone operators and home-makers of the 1950s to the powerful CEOs and executives of today’s biggest corporations, it’s taken decades of political, social and psychological progress to reach a state where, today, gender equality is probably at its highest level ever.
Females today are recognised as both competent business people and competent family custodians – but it’s not easy to be seen as being successful at both together.
Regus looks at a few of the challenges faced by working mothers, and the ways in which employers and governments can improve the situation.
The double-edged stigma
Unfortunately, no matter what women decide when it comes to balancing their families and their careers, they’re sometimes stuck between a rock and hard place.
Mothers who dedicate their time to raising families at home are seen as conforming to a backwards, anti-feminist stereotype, and mothers who continue their careers while their children are young are often seen as selfish career-climbers.
Of course, the reality is quite different. There are millions of single-parent families led by mothers who continue to work out of sheer necessity, and plenty of fully capable fathers who make a decision to stop working in order to take care of the kids. But is a working mother really putting her children at a disadvantage?
Working parents raise working children
A recent study from Harvard University found that, despite public attitudes, the children of working mothers actually appear to thrive. One in three daughters of working mothers were in managerial positions, compared to just one in four daughters of mothers who didn’t work – and on average, the daughters of working mothers were paid around 4% more than their peers.
Their sons, too, were found to be positively influenced by a mother who continued to work. Sons raised by an employed mother “are more involved at home as adults”, and were found to spend more time caring for family members when compared to men whose mothers stayed at home.
“In some ways the results are a comfort to women who do go out to work,” says Rebecca Allen, a senior academic at UCL’s Institute of Education, who’s also a working mother of two, “and a signal to women who don’t that they have to think hard about how the role they have within the household is going to impact their children’s perceptions of what it means to be a woman and to be a mother”.
Discrimination can cut both ways
While any company’s efforts to make their workplace more family-friendly are certainly commendable, there are concerns that the right balance might be hard to achieve.
Research from the Duke University of Law, North Carolina, suggests that the same policies intended to help working parents spend time with their children could be putting workers without kids at a disadvantage.
If one employee needs to watch their child’s baseball match, and another employee needs to take their dog to the vet, is it really fair to consistently give priority to workers who have started families?
The employer’s double standard
Despite a huge number of organisations making significant improvements to the flexible working options they offer, plenty of employees are still wary about taking advantage of them.
The ‘motherhood penalty’ – where mothers are seen as less competent and less committed to their work – is a well-established phenomenon, with employed mothers in the US suffering a wage penalty of roughly 5% for each child they have.
Confusingly, there’s a completely contradictory prejudice associated with working fathers. This ‘fatherhood bonus’ can make men who have children more likely to get hired than their childless male peers and according to research from the University of Massachusetts, men’s wages increased by an average of more than 6% when they had children.
“Employers read fathers as more stable and committed to their work; they have a family to provide for, so they’re less likely to be flaky,” said Michelle Budig, a professor of sociology at Massachusetts. “That is the opposite of how parenthood by women is interpreted by employers. The conventional story is they work less and they’re more distractible when on the job.”
So what can be done?
In a world that places an increasingly high priority on both gender equality and a work-life balance, it’s essential to give employees options. Governments might offer affordable and accessible childcare options for parents who continue to work, and schools might try to limit the amount of mid-week parental activities they require.
Perhaps most importantly, employers need to recognise that every worker – regardless of their gender or whether they have kids – is entitled to a reasonable work-life balance, and that their employees shouldn’t face discrimination or penalties for taking advantage of the flexible arrangements that are becoming modern standard policies.
“Women are still ‘doing it all, not having it all’ and we must shift cultural attitudes to achieve full gender equality,” said Belinda Phipps, chair of the Fawcett Society for women’s equality.
“What is clear is that making the workplace more family-friendly, improving the availability and quality of part-time and flexible working, and investing in childcare are vital to helping individuals achieve a full work-life balance.”
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