That’s right, according to the ONS, 259,000* women left the workforce in 2020.
Unsurprisingly, the Covid pandemic has caused the world’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. According to the BBC, what makes this recession particularly unique is that it is predominantly affecting women. Other recent recessions, including those witnessed in the 1970s and the banking crisis of 2008, resulted in more male redundancies as the manufacturing and construction sectors laid off their (mostly male) workforce. Today’s ‘shecession’ is heavily affecting the Retail and Hospitality sectors. These traditionally female industries are attractive to women because they can fit employment around childcare and other caring responsibilities. And these industries are the first to close in lockdowns.
In July 2020, McKinsey calculated that women’s jobs have been 1.8 times more vulnerable than men’s during this recession. They estimated that before COVID, women made up 39% of the global workforce. They have since accounted for 54% (and counting) of the global job losses caused by the pandemic.
According to their report, Covid-19 and Gender Equality, “analysis finds that the gendered nature of work across industries explains one-fourth of the difference between job-loss rates for men and women. The lack of systemic progress to resolve other societal barriers for women explains the rest.”
There are now real fears that the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic will undo the DECADES of progress women have made in establishing themselves in the modern workplace.
The Motherhood Penalty
My firm announced its redundancy plans in the summer of 2020. Was my fear that two recent maternity leaves and a part-time working pattern would single me out for redundancy justified?
Marianne Cooper, writing in The Atlantic, states, “motherhood triggers (false) assumptions that mothers are more focused on their children than on their job and are therefore less competent, committed, and productive at work than fathers or employees without children. This “motherhood penalty” results in mothers getting paid less and being passed over in hiring and promotion decisions. …When visibility is limited, people are more likely to rely on stereotypes to fill in the gaps. This dynamic sets the stage for maternal bias to occur because stereotypes, like the idea that mothers focus more on their children than their job, can draw a manager’s eye toward the few instances in which a mother fell short and away from all the other times she delivered.”
The Elephants in the Room
Were these female redundancies (including mine), therefore, inevitable due to deep-set societal biases? I believe that pregnancy, motherhood and flexible working arrangements are the elephants in the room. They make it more likely for women to be selected for redundancy, less likely to be hired, and, subsequently, prevent them from climbing the career ladder. These elephants appear about 10 – 15 years into a mother’s career. As any parent will attest, they then place their (nappy-encased) bottom squarely on the rung, which can prove impossible to sidestep.
According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, women’s average earnings are slightly lower than men’s before their first child. They state that “The gender wage gap widens gradually but significantly from the late 20s and early 30s. Men’s wages tend to continue growing rapidly at this point in the life cycle (particularly for the highly educated), while women’s wages plateau. The arrival of children accounts for this gradual widening of the gender wage gap with age. There is, on average, a wage gap of around 10%, even shortly before the arrival of the first child. But this gap is fairly stable until the child arrives and is small relative to what follows: there is then a gradual but continual rise in the wage gap and, by the time the first child is aged 20, women’s hourly wages are about a third below men’s.”
I refer to pregnancy, maternity leave, and flexible working arrangements as the ‘elephants in the room’ because they (like discussing money with your friends) are among the workplace’s last taboos. A well-known quote reads: “We expect women to work like they don’t have children and raise children as if they don’t work.” This is unhelpful in a society where most mothers work. According to the ONS, over 72% of women now work, compared to just over 52% in 1971. Yes, the motherhood penalty is discussed extensively in various company publications and news articles. We whisper about it at the school gate, but how many times have you heard it openly discussed amongst colleagues? Corporations talk a good game about promoting Diverse and Inclusive cultures and closing their gender pay gap. But is this just marketing rhetoric? How much are they practising their own spin? Are they encouraging an open dialogue with employees about working practices that will really benefit them?
Do part-time professional jobs even exist?
In mid-November 2020, I quickly searched on Reed.co.uk for Recruiter (my industry) jobs in London. The result showed 938 vacancies. Of these, only 39 were part-time. That means 96% of the job vacancies wanted a full-time employee. By clicking further into the roles, I noticed that most weren’t recruitment at all but positions within the childcare and caring sectors?!?! These are positions that society (wrongly) values the least and, therefore, sit within our worst-paid sectors. If the recruitment team won’t consider part-time employees, will they ever really consider part-time and flexible working requests across the broader organisation, despite what their careers pages tell us?!?
For those wanting to re-enter the workforce part-time, the odds of securing a new position equal to their skills and experience are stacked against them.
It is an open secret that if you manage to secure a part-time position with your employer, you are, for better or worse, stuck with them. The part-time mothers I know are some of the most loyal employees there are. Is this because of gratitude to their current employer for granting their flexible working request? Or because they are all too aware of the limited external options available? I appreciate that some companies value and advance their part-time employees – I just haven’t heard of many!
As a recruiter, I am aware that most people are underpaid. Many employers pay their staff as little as they can get away with. It often surprised me how little loyal candidates were paid compared to those who had moved around a bit. I’ll let you into a secret – to get a serious pay rise, you need to switch employers. Sometimes, you don’t need to go that far – just a resignation letter can lead to a counteroffer and extra money on the table (believe me, the extra money is a lot less than the company would pay to replace you, so don’t get too flattered!)
However, if there is a lack of part-time roles for working mothers (or fathers) to apply for, their employer is secure knowing that she ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. They can afford to keep underpaying her. More transparency about colleagues’ salaries in the workplace would help counter this. This underpayment could continue for YEARS – contributing to a smaller paycheque during the mother’s working life and the Pension Gap in future. The gender pay gap is further entrenched, and the circle continues.
*Figures correct as of the 15th of December 2020.
A Mother’s Voice – an under-represented (yet bloody vital) voice in the debate about working mothers, female talent and gender diversity at work.
If you have managed to get to the end of this blog post, thank you for sticking with me. This blog series aims to give me, a working mother, and other under-represented groups a platform to contribute to the debate about gender (in)equality and other forms of equality, diversity and inclusivity at work. Our voice can get lost amongst the myriad of commentators, government spokespeople and employers already contributing to the conversation. There are very few organisations (Pregnant then Screwed being an exception) that ask us what is really going on. My ‘A Mother’s Voice’ blog series highlights the REAL reasons mothers are held back in the workplace and why the gender pay gap subsequently exists. Expect candid blog posts that challenge everything you think you know about working mothers and what it is really like to be a parent in the 21st century.
A Mother’s Voice is dedicated to all my mum friends who are trying their best to balance the tightrope between work and family. They are all exceptional women and mothers, and their frequent WhatsApp messages have kept me sane throughout 2020. They will all know who they are, so thank you!
A Mother’s Voice is also dedicated to the other 259,000 women who were made redundant in 2020. I hope this series does you justice.
Last but not least, this blog is for my daughters. I will do my absolute level best to smash that glass ceiling for you so that by the time you are all grown up, the workplace will be a fairer and more inclusive place. One where all employees can reach their full potential xxx
If you would like to join in the conversation about equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace and how diverse organisations can make society a fairer place, please get in touch with me here. I would love to hear from you.