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SOME MIGHT HAVE viewed the pandemic as an accelerator toward a more progressive world of work, however for many the ‘ We are all in this together’ mantra has grown stale.
The past year of Covid-19 lockdowns, work from home, and homeschooling has exacerbated the barriers that were already there in relation to participation and progression for women in the workplace.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated issue or just an Irish problem, but has been reported across the world and even highlighted by the UN and flagged by global consultancy McKinsey.
Data from 2019 shows how in recent years Ireland’s female labour participation rates have advanced to mid-table by EU standards, and there has been a noticeable and commendable increase in the female presence at board level.
However recent trends threaten to counter this progress and if we do not address the factors that contribute to women retreating from the world of work now, we will not have the pipeline of female talent across all levels that is needed to really change the gender balance in business long-term.
Building a better system
Last August, Dublin Chamber held member focus groups on the impact of Covid-19 on female labour participation. Attendees were from across the spectrum of businesses, both in relation to size and sector, and included entrepreneurs as well as directors and partners.
Overwhelmingly, feedback from the groups reflected the international experience of working from home whilst also shouldering greater shares of household duties.
Many were optimistic about the positives that could be achieved through progressive attitudes around flexible working but there was also notable concern that women would be sidelined to the ‘work from home role’ as men progressed up the ladder in the office.
Some participants were already seeing female colleagues looking at taking a step back due to the pressures of a senior role and home duties.
Without the sharing of caring and parental duties, progression and sticking power for women in senior positions will remain difficult. We need to strengthen the structures to enable fathers and partners to take on caring duties from the beginning. CSO figures on maternity and paternity leave show that just under half of fathers do not avail of the two weeks of leave to which they are entitled.
It is likely that this can be brought back to two points, that the culture around fathers taking leave has not yet progressed enough within firms or societally, and, that there are financial considerations that prevent it, as few two-parent households would choose to have both earners on the standard weekly paternity and/or maternity benefit of €245.
The government is looking at extending Parent’s Leave from two weeks per parent in the first year of a child’s life to five weeks over the first two years of a child’s life. We will see legislation on this in the year ahead and it is essential that efforts are made to promote it to all that are entitled to it.
The EU has recognised that parental duties need to be promoted to all partners through its Work-Life Balance Directive, it would be wise for the Irish Government to take note when it comes to parental and paternity leave policy and its promotion.
The childcare barrier
Childcare costs present another issue. It is simply not accessible and too expensive, with average figures regularly quoted for Dublin at over €1,000 per child per month. The CSO’s figures on paternity and maternity leave also show that the return to work rate declines with the number of children a mother has.
It is simple maths that it becomes too expensive to remain in the workplace if you have more than one child in childcare. It has also become clear that remote working is not the answer to childcare, as anyone that has been home-schooling can attest.
The government needs to make bold progression in this space, just as it has shown it is capable of during the current crisis.
The progression around remote working over the past year has been extraordinary. Dublin Chamber members have widely reported that they will be enabling a level of remote working longer term, with most looking to a hybrid system of 60-80% of an employee’s time being spent in the office.
However, it is essential that we think now about any unintended consequences that may arise. Remote working should not become the ‘Mother’ option whereby male colleagues retain visibility while women of child rearing age become less visible.
Flexible working policies being promoted across the board, and a considered set of steps around how firms roll out such policies is the answer. The government needs to similarly progress with caution.
Last week, we marked International Women’s Day, in which we celebrated our successes whilst also looking ahead to the work that needs to be done to maintain and progress.
This year, with everything going on, we need to take a pause and really assess what steps we are taking in relation to childcare, caring duties, and flexible working to ensure greater gender balance and a strong representation of women at senior levels.
Mary Rose Burke is CEO of Dublin Chamber.
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Women would be sidelined to the “working from home” role. Where are they getting this from? Their heads? What a nothing article.
@Shnack: its a plausible concern. The article raises the point men should have more opportunity for paternal care, do you not agree?
@SmallbutMighty: yes I agree that maternity leave should be offered as a parental share instead of the woman just getting it. If they had a choice of which parent takes it then it would be equal. But just thinking that it might send women into a role is just wrong and a sexist assumption
@Shnack: on the contrary I’ve attended a few women in business seminars over the last year and the studies have shown that while both parents have been working from home by an over whelming majority it is the woman who also took on the role of homeschooling. Its just important that while we are in this transition of what normal is and companies go back to work in the office we are mindful of the unattended consequences. That means supporting both men and women in work and at home. Most husbands I know are wonderful but they are quite happy for the women to be the one to bend.
@SmallbutMighty: so if the women took on the homeschooling instead of the men isn’t that the couples choice? I fail to see the issue here.
@SmallbutMighty: From my own experience this is absolute 6u11$h1t.
Since lockdown began I’ve been doing 90% of the homeschooling and most of my friends and work collegues have similar experences.
I have no problem with that as in all cases the couples in question would be Architects, Engineers, Accountants, University Lecturers, IT professionals where the wives would be just as busy as the men professionally but as I say in all cases it’s us husbands who have been doing most of the homeschooling and in some cases a lot more than that.
My experience is that pandemic or not, the modern man does a lot more around the house and family than in previous generations quite simply because he has no choice….
And that on top doing all the things we normally do anyway. It’s been a long time sine my wife has changed a puncture, dealt with her own car accident(s), climbed up onto the roof to fix a broken tile, cleared a blocked sewer pipe, replaced an immersion, chopped up a fallen tree etc, etc.
@Stanley Marsh: You need a new house. Thing sounds like it’s about to fall down.
@SmallbutMighty: In relation to parental care I’ve been of the view for quite some time now that there is an obvious and simple solution to a lot of the issues surrounding maternaty leave.
My own wife experienced traumatic injustice when our last child was born. She took her full allowed leave but when she went back was told her job no longer existed and she was made redundant on her first day back.
The fact is many employers (including women) see women of childbearing age a liability and don’t want anything to do with them.
However the reality is society needs babies and there’s no way around that.
The solution? When a couple have a baby make it mandatory for the partner to take the same amount of leave as the mother.
Straight away you have a situation where the mother is no longer the ‘liability’ and unless employers want to stop hiring potential fathers as well they’ll be forced to deal with the situation properly and not just focus on women.
It also immediaetly ends the debate about who should take what leave, when and ends the situation where fathers would like to take leave but feel they can’t.
Who pays for it? The whole area is a society issue and needs to be dealt with properly and sensibly.
Unless we decide we no longer need babies of course or better yet as I heard a few childless women collegues voice if we decide that having babies is a luxury.
@Stanley Marsh: you sound angry. I agree like men should be supported more in doing the caring roll women should also be encouraged to do more of heavy lifting we are more than capable. I don’t buy into thats a mans job anymore then that’s a woman’s job. Im just saying that society has come a long way in terms of equality in the workplace let’s not take our eye off the ball.
@Stanley Marsh: sorry to hear about your wife. Yes while lots of companies have made great changes in terms of diversity I have spoken to some employers lately (smaller businesses) that said they just won’t hire women of child baring age. That came from men and women. A level playing field in terms of leave is a possible solution.
@Stanley Marsh: and with the greatest respect chopping down trees or cleaning drains does not have an impact on your career. I feel this article is simply stating what often happens that women forfeit their career to care for their children, now with working from home there is a risk that they will be expected to work full time and maintain the care giving role. Im not man bashing. I believe in true equality.
@Tommy Roche: No just the normal, everyday things that need to be done on any property over time that a lot of men or women pay someone else to do.
The pandemic has really highlighted how little we think of women in the workforce. Lack of access to affordable childcare or equal parternaty leave has forced so many to give up work.
We need men to take the lead on this…fathers need to demand flexibility in the workplace use parental leave etc. Until men ask employers for flexible hours and use parental leave, wfh etc my husband and I are a partnership, we share childcare and flexible working hours. He has asked for flexible hours. Nothing is going to change until both parents are United and respect both careers.
As a working mother I get so angry when other mothers complain that they cannot get flexible hours part time etc and when I ask have their husbands look for the same they trot out a excuse that his job is not flexible or don’t allow parental leave.
Not all roles are flexible, not all companies can let everyone WFH. Not all companies will let people WFH, ‘if bums aren’t in seats work isn’t getting done’ is still very much a mantra of management. I was able to WFH from when this all kicked off and am lucky that was the case but then the company didn’t adjust their expectations on workload and your 9 hour day suddenly became a 12 hour one as you fitted in parenting and work. This can’t be another ‘gender battle’ – it is a corporate mindset that needs to be changed and fixed. Myself and my wife both are in roles that could WFH, both alternated on a daily basis who was on parenting duty during work and who was working upstairs. But the working day got longer and longer when we became part time teachers on top of it all. How about just this once we don’t do the whole gender-vs-gender thing and band together to get businesses to understand that if an employee comes up and asks for WFH it is required for some valid reason and that the investment in trust will actually result in better output.
As a woman and a mother I would tell my girls not to have kids if they want a career. Growing up in Sweden being in childcare or school for many hours a day only having 2-3 h of time with my parents every day and that to be shared with my siblings meant I got lost and as a 9 year old I no longer wanted to live. To stop going to childcare at age 10 removed one environment where i no longer was bullied. I can see in my children what it means to have me at home full time. Why can it not be talked about having stay at home parents? Ie. One parent work and the other stays home or both work 50% dividing the day between them? Its always get the kids into childcare or fathers have to “step up” Many fathers do step up, fathers bring a different side to parenting than mothers do and the child needs both. We going towards a society that means we have to work work work, ur success is only measured in material stuff. I know that me and my family dont need a sun holiday every year, a trip to the beach here in ireland gives just as much joy as a beach in spain/portugal ect. Camping here in ireland has given my kids much more amazing memories than the two sun holidays we have done. Also if we put pressure on the employeers that overtime means employ more staff we can get more people from the dole into the workforce. And men will only be seen more if the managers are focusing on them. If managers have to pay same amount of time to every employee then all employees have a chance to shine.
@Cecilia Doyle: While I agree with you on many aspects, the problem still is that a family with any number of children can hardly survive on one income. Let alone save money for the purchase of a house. When you look at the salaries of the vast majority of people in Ireland, and leave those 0.9% out, who screw up the statistics with their income of over 100k p.a., you’ll see that the majority of people have about 27-37k p.a. before tax and other mandatory deductions. With rents of over 800€ per month, how on earth can a family of 3-5 people survive on that??? Ergo, both parents need to work. Or else live on the threshold of so-called middle class poverty.
@Cecilia Doyle: while I agree with some of your points I don’t agree that parents are working for material gain. There are few permanent jobs out there now, we have both always worked, and there has been periods when one of us has been out of work and if the other hadn’t worked we would be in dire straits. Our income goes on bills, a mortgage, food, our kids education and savings . We don’t go on foreign holidays, we manage on one car. No one knows what life will throw at you
I would propose that if both parents are going to work, then schools need to be longer in hours and also provide bussing, before and after childcare options. Who can realistically work 8-5 and do school runs both before and after school? I gave up my career for 15+ years to stay home with the children and it was a good decision for us. I do not know how people manage with both parents working when for some children, the school day is only 4 hours long, there are no school lunches or bussing.
Parenting is a full time job, and those who have two incomes give up a significant amount of it to pay for childcare. Is it worth it? Each family, has to ask the question and do what is right for them.
@Seeking Truth: sometimes the extra 50 or a hundred quid thats left at the end of the week is very much needed. Sometimes just staying in the workforce is needed even if it means you have nothing at the end of the week. When my youngest went to school I found myself pretty much unemployable in any decent role. (I child minded when they were younger) Im just finishing a full time degree now as re-education was my only opportunity to get a decent job. There was absolutely no support to return to education because I’m married and my prsi had expired so I’m blessed my husband was able to support us for the last 3 years and my mum helped with childcare. I think the back to education allowance should be extended to parents who took a career break to raise children. In order to qualify I would have had to take a job that would cost me money to build up my stamps then leave it and go on the dole for 9 months. Agree with the shorter day for juniors. In the UK all primary finish at the same time and means you can start getting back to work sooner.
Juggle what you can. Middle class? get two jobs, retire when you’re 80!… Lol. We’re lucky ‘Capitalism’ and the ‘cost of living’ don’t have a physical form as they would wipe the floor with these types of arguments.
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