It costs to be a mother and a worker
Jul 20 2009 by Kevin Rowan, The Journal
AN excellent new report this month from the Fawcett Society emphasises the dramatic cost of motherhood to working women.
One of the predictable outcomes from the recession will be that inequality will actually increase, it is the lowest paid, most vulnerable members of the labour market that will bear the brunt.
And despite 40 years of equal pay legislation women’s pay still lags the earnings of men by 17.1% for full-time workers and at least 22.5% for those working part-time. Much of this earnings gap is caused by occupational segregation.
There has, so far, only been slow progress in breaking down the barriers women face in being enabled to access career progression and senior employment opportunities.
A second major factor is the fact the jobs with large concentrations of women workers, such as retail or social care, are also low-paying sectors. We seem more prepared to pay for the usually male mechanics who repair our cars than we do for the usually female workers who provide our childcare.
Not Having it All points out that there is a further factor contributing significantly to the gender pay gap; motherhood. The report asserts that a combination of factors means that taking time out can reduce a woman’s career earnings by as much as 20%, even a short break can reduce future earnings, as women miss out of relevant experience .
For each year a women is absent from the workplace future wages will reduce by 4%.
The second major factor contributing to reduced earnings for mothers is the return to work. Just over half of all mothers with children under 5 are in paid work (compared to over 90% of fathers), for lone mothers this falls to about a third.
For those that do return to work, a significant majority do not return to the same level of occupation, and often returning only part-time, facing dramatically reduced earnings. Sometimes this is a positive choice, while many employers do get the return to work process right, often this change is forced because their employer doesn’t offer appropriate flexible working arrangements, sometimes it is just downright discrimination, believing that employing a mother increases the risk of absenteeism and unreliability.
Many employers, of course, discriminate in recruitment, deliberately avoiding employing women of childbearing age, seeing it as a potential future ‘burden’.
The Fawcett society propose four practical policy interventions, all of which seem wholly reasonable to me.
The first is to provide mothers with support to return to work at their previous skills level, to compensate for time out of the workplace, something the best employers already do; secondly, there is a clear case for enforcing current maternity and discrimination law; thirdly, there is a strong case for improving flexibility in senior posts, and finally, tackle low pay in sectors employing mostly women.
Kevin Rowan, regional secretary, Northern TUC
