Employers Thinking Twice About Offering Child-Bearing Age Women Jobs
21 07 2008Maternity Leave “Damages” Women’s Careers
The childfree have little cause to worry about maternity leave… or do we? In Britain, women can take statutory maternity leave of up to a year with statutory pay of 39 weeks. The 52 weeks is the result of a recent extension, but what we’ve been suspecting for some time now is out in the open. And that is employers (particularly smaller businesses) are thinking twice before offering women jobs or promotion. Fathers can now also take paternity leave for up to two weeks. The government, after focusing on maternity leave for years now thinks that it’s that focus that’s causing the backlash. Their solution? To extend more leave to fathers so that it’s shared and called “parental leave,” presumably to take the heat off the maternity leave.
The times I’ve wished that I was entitled to some leave (other than holidays or vacation) to take care of what’s important to me are innumerable. Parental benefits always take priority over those without children. Family-friendly means people with children friendly. Women can go off every other year to have children and would still get the same benefits. But let’s put that unfairness aside for now and get back to the article.
While businesses want a rest from the changes to maternity leave the government on the other hand wants to extend the leave to both the mothers and the fathers. So that would mean upping the time fathers can take off as paternity or “parental” leave. That, of course only widens the problem for employers. Both parents could feasibly take up to 6 months off… if the current leave time is shared. Meanwhile businesses would be left with sorting out the resulting administrative paperwork nightmare as if they don’t have enough already. It remains to be seen whether men would rush to take up the extended parental leave. But who knows?
The anecdotal stories that some businesses are refusing to employ women of childbearing age maybe aren’t all that anecdotal after all.
So what does this have to do with the childfree? Leaving aside that the childfree and others without children are left to carry the extra workload when their colleagues are off having kids – and get no such accommodation it might actually be a good time to talk up the fact that we’re childfree. That we’re not going to go off and have children and that means we bring more flexibility to the employer.
Childfree Chick shows the way on her post here: Side Stepping the mommy tax. Well worth a read – and a indication of the future – a future where we won’t have to hide our child free-ness but can make it a unique selling point when it comes to getting a job.
Mothers feel they should have the right to careers as well as time to spend with their children. Here are the views of one mother taken from the BBC website:
“I took a year off when my son was born. I think spending the first year of your child’s life with them is hugely important and would not have done anything differently.
However, I was not entitled to my old job back when I returned to the same company, regardless of my loyalty and hard work, so a compromise had to be reached. I know that I will not have the same opportunities for promotion as I chose to come back part-time, but your priorities change and you don’t take work so seriously once you have a kid.
I think the whole process of returning to work should be made easier for women as it nearly gave me a hernia… it was so stressful arranging childcare and working out finances.”
If you don’t take work so seriously once you have a kid, then why should any business take the mother seriously? I wonder, will there ever come a time when childfree men and women get even half of the benefits one gets simply because they’ve decided to have children, a personal decision.
Here’s another view…
“Next week I will return to work after 10 months’ maternity leave. I have had to compromise my career in the police but that is more my choice than that of my employer, who has been very good. I do feel that some women feel they should have it all. Having children is a choice and a privilege that some are not lucky enough to have.”
My view? From what I have seen in working environments I’ve been in, mothers have nothing to complain about. Granted those are larger employers, whose benefit packages are substantial. But just recently I was hearing from one of my colleagues how three people off on maternity leave (one for the second time in as many years) was wrecking havoc on projects. Hiring replacements was extremely difficult and so people were doing double, even triple duty in terms of workload. That we still have to play second fiddle to those who decide to re-produce is something I hope will be rectified at some point. But I’m not holding my breath. And neither am I blaming smaller employers for looking out for what works best for their business.
Over to you.
Technorati Tags: childfree, childfree
I wonder how many people reading these articles will realise that maternity leave not only damages the mother’s career, but that of childfree people even more. There are many jobs now that I look at where they say that they really want to hear from women - not because they necessarily want to employ them, but because they have to say things like that due to Government regulations on equal opportunities. In all likelihood they won’t employ more women because they’re afraid that they are going to get up the duff and leave the company in the crap. Why should a company pay someone to sit at home all day, then pay someone else to come in and do the work? How is it fair on a company to have to pay twice for one amount of work being done? Having voiced this similar opinion before, I remember being lambasted for supporting ‘draconian’ employers. So many companies could not survive to pay two people for one person’s work.
I somewhat fear sending my CV out now, as I wonder whether potential employers will look at it and decide that because of my age, and being married means that I will pop a few sprogs in a few years time. Putting something on the CV saying that you won’t is probably not appropriate. Whether finishing my degree will make a difference, I am not sure. Surely it’s a sad sign of the state of employment when people are fearful of being ignored because they’re of a certain age? Not to mention being completely unfair towards people who are choosing not have any little dahlings.
“If you don’t take work so seriously once you have a kid, then why should any business take the mother seriously?”
Brilliant! It’s one thing to take the leave and be appreciate of it, it’s totally another thing to expect business to bend over backwards to accommodate the new parent. Another example of the self-absorption of some parents.
It also ties into the myth of being able to have it all. Guess what? You can’t. Being an adult means making choices and when you choose one way you can’t have the other way as well. It’s time people take responsibility for the choices they make and stop trying to do everything. Or to stop trying to have everything pandered to them.
True. You can’t have cake, eat it and fuck the baker.
Mrs. Ogre, I’m stealing that. Wow…
Honestly, I don’t understand the assumption that having children means that you can have special treatment. Taking a year off, coming back with no transferrable skills and then taking work less seriously SHOULD mean that you don’t get promoted. It’s only fair to the people who do take it seriously. I’ve heard that a common bingo directed at childfree women (not me, no one believes that I am childfree) is that they chose work over children. Firstly, so what? Secondly, I assume from that that these women see a career as second in importance to children. Fine. Now will you please shut up about how having children has damaged your career? Make some choices and have the ovaries to admit that you can’t have it all. Parenthood requires sacrifices.
I often wonder if I should put membership in childfree organizations on my resume to ensure people are aware of my childfree status without having to dance around the issue. The issue is our family friendly society where women are also likely to be judged and discriminated against for their lack of children. No matter what decision women of childbearing age make about our bodies, there will unfortunately be discrimination.
Thank god I’m past the age where this is an issue now, but when I was in my 30’s and applying for professional, high powered jobs, you could see interviewers looking at you sideways and the wheels turning in their heads. More than once I put it out there that I wasn’t planning on having kids, and you could almost see the looks of relief on their faces. Of course, it’s illegal to ask the question, but that doesn’t stop a lot of them from alluding to it. And as far as I’m concerned, they have a right to know.
I have to admit that as an employer, I’ve discriminated against twenty and thirty somethings myself. I’ve built a career working as a key manager in smaller companies, and for such companies training a wannabreed to have them leave a year later, and demand that you keep their position open, is a monumental pain in the butt. Plus, as someone pointed out, they’re never the same when they come back anyway - they drag their asses, take zillions of sick days, drive up benefit costs and leave ten minutes before knockoff to “beat the traffic because the sitter closes at six”. When your team relies on everyone to pull their weight, mothers are a bad bet, and I don’t blame employers at all.
Mrs. Ogre’s comment rawks.
There’s a reason why certain careers have a “Mommy Track.” Bigtime careers take bigtime dedication…
Stepher
There is so much to this. I know in the States its illegal to ask questions that alude to “famblee” exactly for the reasons stated here: employers will descriminate. About 2 years ago I did have a guy flat out ask me (after saying he realizes he could get in trouble with HR) if I had kids or planned on them anytime soon. I paused for a moment, wondering what I should say. I knew he had 2 teen age daughters so I found it kind of interesting he asked. While I paused he said that he was fed up with hiring women only to have them on maternity leave 6 months later expecting the company to pay for it. That happened to the last 2 or 3 women he hired.
I nodded, paused for another moment longer and decided what the hell. I then told him I was childfree, I had no intentions of having children, EVER, and that leaves me open to commitment and dedication that most parents cannot commit to.
Guess what he said after that?
“You’re really missing out on not having children.”
Oi. I got a BINGO! *insert eye roll*
I did, however, get the job.
It was also that interaction that I knew, and he knew, we could both be honest and straight up with each other. A year later I quit. Only because I wanted a better opportunity. BTW, in that year, we did have one woman we hired (against MY recommendation) who completely hid the fact that she was pregnant (big blazer, kept her resume portfolio infront of her stomach the whole time). I knew something was up. Like I said, we hired her. A month later, she’s requesting maternity leave for a few months down the road. WTF???
The joke was on her because the company had also gotten fed up with women doing what she just did and had changed company policy about a year prior to her start there (just before *I* started) and said that while they cannot stop you from taking maternity leave, you will not get PAID maternity leave until you’ve worked for the company atleast a year, if not longer.
The only “problem” was that she was still able to milk the insurance system. Which also pissed me off. Atleast I got a smirk out of the fact that for 2 months she didn’t get paid. I left right after she came back.
It’s bullshit like this that is the reason why I hate m00mbies in the workforce. They’re not really working to do the actual job, they’re working for the insurance benefits and to hopefully have the company pick up the tab on that AND pay them to sprog.
We once hired a woman who announced she was pregnant once hr 3 month probation period was over, claiming she didn’t know she was preggers. Then she left for a full year (in Quebec it’s PAID), got back, then resigned a few months later to go to another company. She also made the worst choice ever in men: her baby daddy had 3 kids from a woman who keeps popping them to get welfare.
Afterwards, I told my boss (who is cf too!) that I think she knew quite well she was pregnant and abused the system. She agreed.
Anywho, on a side note, I was playing World of Warcraft today, when another player tells me my character is hot, let’s make babies… wtf? I told him, I know I’m hot, but I’m adamantly childfree and I can’t stand kids. It took him a while to realize and for the notion of cf making it through his thick skull, then asked something along the lines of: What you’ll never get the amazing feeling of your first born looking you in the eyes and saying I love you mommy? Barf! I told him I hate the little fuckers. If I can’t play my game without encountering breeders, then I’ll rip them a new one.
I’ve noticed that some of the women who quit after the child is born leave a lot of loose threads hanging. For example, their decision to be a stay-at-home mom always seemed to come while they were in the middle of some important project at work. Now the boss and everyone else has to scramble to get things done. It’s annoying.
You would think that once kids arrived, that would be incentive to work harder, as that is directly proportionate to one’s ability to provide well for one’s family!
Many of these women whose work ethic seems to take a nosedive post-baby must have husbands with serious earning power backing them up.
Thanks one and all for these great comments.
CF4Life -many of them want to stay home and the only thing stopping them is that the husbands don’t have the serious earning power… or if they do, it makes no financial sense. But you do have to have a serious earner to make up the loss of a salary and provide for extra mouth(s).
Hillari - I know of a case where a position was open because of mat leave. Managers weren’t allowed to fill it. So the work was parceled out and the position held open for the returnee. The returnee wanted to be promoted on her return. She was told politely, no.
Mrs Ogre, I’m sorry but I couldn’t stop giggling at when i read your comment re: playing World of Warcraft!!! Is nowhere safe?? That sucks. On another note, there are many women who join a company just to get mat benefit. Working for just two years seems to be worth it to get the one year off popping out more babies… they are almost always off the following year with #2. Oh and your baker was priceless
CFs6 - I don’t like the idea of anyone being discriminated against, but at the same time I do feel for them as they have to complay with certain laws. Larger companies can absorb the cost of having several people off on mat leave, but a smaller company can go under or at the very least suffer considerable loss. So I’m not surprised that they are concerned. The trouble is there is no way to actually tell if someone’s going to go off and have kids and so childfree women are lumped together in the same “Childbearing age” bucket. And what happens? A man is more likely to get the job… since there is no chance they are going to play the system.
Plus, many employers are clueless that there is anything called “childfree.”
Stephr - but now the mothers are complaining about the “mommy track” and some employers are being asked to do more to “help them get back into the work force.” Would you or get the same kind of help to get back into the workforce?
I think not.
Kat - “Plus, as someone pointed out, they’re never the same when they come back anyway - they drag their asses, take zillions of sick days, drive up benefit costs and leave ten minutes before knockoff to “beat the traffic because the sitter closes at six”. When your team relies on everyone to pull their weight, mothers are a bad bet, and I don’t blame employers at all.”
I don’t blame them either.
But no one is allowed to complain or even hint that others are working that much harder. As long as is a child-related absence any hint of complaint is met with outrage. It’s really interesting to see how the extended benefits have come full circle. How can a company afford to have someone off for a year or more?
Explosive B… You’re right. Even if we’re not planning to have kids employers (who often have kids of their own) simply assume we’re going to. Personally I would look for a way to link it to flexibility and productivity, commitment and dedicaion like CFS 6 said… employers get that picture very quickly.
Irishgirl “…Now will you please shut up about how having children has damaged your career? Make some choices and have the ovaries to admit that you can’t have it all. Parenthood requires sacrifices”
Too right!
RMS - What I find strange is that childfree people recognise it’s near impossible to have it all… yet these women seem never to consider it all. I mean, they assume that they can have it all (because of course you can have whatever you want, right?) and demand that workplaces change to accomodate their needs. Once again giving themselves “special status.” Why? Should we ask for “special” treatment too?
I’m surprise to know that in Britain women can take a year for maternity leave…In my place for sure she will have been fire for that. The company where I worked gives very limited maternity leave. Only 3 months. 45 days before and after the birth. And if the birth is earlier than prediction, the total maternity leave will be less than 3 months.
@Mrs. Ogre- As a fellow WoW player, I feel for you. The last thing you need when you’re attempting to immerse yourself in another world is some dumbass shoving breeder mentality in your face…about your avatar? Even more bizarre.
@Carisa, this morning again, the public chat channel was reserved for 2 breeders talking about their kids and how about they didn’t want to explain homosexuality to them, how it was sinful, etc. So we get not only breeders, but fundies as well. I told them plainly to take their bible stumping elsewhere, that religion has no place in WoW, that there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality and that xtians who praise tolerance should set an example. I got fed up, I lodged a complaint and teleported elsewhere.
I no longer play WoW, but lodging a complaint, and ignoring those players, really, is all you can do.
It bemuses me that Europe has a lower birthrate than the US despite having more family-friendly policies on child care and maternity leave. But in Europe, don’t you pay more tax if you have more kids, because it’s you who will be utilizing the school systems and public programmes? Here it’s just the opposite. More kids = more tax breaks.
But people who keep popping out more sprogs for more welfare money, tax breaks, etc just show how stupid they are. While it may not be fair for parents to get this “special treatment”, I really don’t begrudge them that.
Because at the end of the day, I know I’m still coming out way on top by not having the tax perks, and also not having the kids to put a drain on my finances!
CF4Life - In the UK at least, every family gets a lumpsum when the child is born (of about £250, or $500US), then they get child benefit, which is approximately £20 per week for the eldest child, and around £13 per week for every other child thereafter. They are also entitled to contributions to child care, a child tax credit and a working families tax credit. For a family of four children, they will get almost £3000 per year just out of the weekly child benefit, and just solely for having children regardless of whether either parent is working or has worked in their life at all.
Where as, if you work over a certain amount of hours and you don’t have any children, you are not entitled to any help from the UK Government which comes as an extra blow to the fact that the UK Government earlier this year abolished the lowest tax bracket meaning that about 7 million people who were already struggling on low wages now pay double the amount in tax, and yet are still not entitled to any assistance from the Government. In the UK, if you don’t have children you really are left on your own by our esteemed Labour Government, and at the budget this year they experienced quite a huge backlash from the millions who have not been breeding.
There are many instances, mainly in our tabloids but also in word of mouth, about people who keep on having children so that they can get a bigger council house and more benefits. It’s quite disgusting to realise that some families get paid £30,000 per year solely in Benefits and have all of their rent paid for them, when they do not work at all, and do not pay a single iota of tax. Yet if you struggle along on less then £10,000 per year, the Government won’t even acknowledge you exist.
Dorian - you are absolutely correct. I follow the UK news quite closely and it’s really appalling how much people are left to struggle on while more and more is given to those who choose to have ever more children. I also go home fairly regularly and when I was there in April it seemed that there were kids - and mothers - everywhere. It was probably my imagination (and the fact that I was out and about during the day and the part of town I was in, but all the same.. And to think it is hard-pressed childfree tax dollars that go towards the benefits.
I am all for people having a safety net to be used when it’s needed. But it often appears that popping out kids for some is a cottage industry all by itself in the UK. I’m hoping Labour gets turfed out, the problem is the alternative Tory lot are no better and even more family-friendly
By the way France also has a very generous benefit system for those who have children. What they get for the first child - and subsequent children is a lot more than in the UK. Of course, France is actively trying to encourage more women to reproduce and making it well worth their while.
Europe is in quite a panic over (native) birthrates, I hear, so I’m sure there will be more such stories in the near future.
On one hand, breeding is a good idea because the economies will collapse due to insufficient workers/consumers/tax payers. On the other, breeding is a bad idea because of the drain it puts on the world’s finite resources. WTF. Oh well.
At the end of the day, we can only follow our hearts, right? And I know where mine is leading me!
CF4Life - it’s a debate that’s going on a lot at the moment, and over the weekend a Technology website posted an article about such things:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/27/doctors_babies_patio_heaters_o_lordy/
I work in Technology and most of the people that I’ve met are a bunch of Childfree, at times childhaters, but the comments on that article surprise me. Although, it’s likely that a lot of people think it’s the government just trying to find a way to be even more nanny like. I guess there’s no answer to it - at least I [probably] won’t be around to see it all end!
I wonder, given this, if there is some way to introduce the CF topic during an interview. I mean, I am a young, married woman. Potential hiring managers might be reluctant to hire me, given the fear that I might start popping out a litter as soon as I secure maternity benefits. If there was a way to say that I am CF, I would have a leg up, wouldn’t I?
Dorian Gray, WHERE do you work? I’m a computer programmer (woman) and nearly EVERYONE around me is a parent, or wanna-be parent! Ugh!
Dorian,
Some people are in denial it seems. Working with even one more childfree person would be great. Right now, as CFS6 says they are all parents or wanna-be parents.
Og17 - I’d find a way to weave into the conversation by talking about flexibility and being able to go the extra mile if needed. It think it gives an edge. But I wouldn’t go too far… you don’t want it to be taken as carte blanche for being totally available at all hours, so that the mommies can continue to dash of for kiddie activities.
Oh, I have a fabulous system for that. I work out during my lunch hour. Always have, at just about every job I’ve had. Never skip a day. Your dumb brat recital is important enough to cut out early, well so is my health. I put it more diplomatically, but basically, you worry about your family and its health, and I worry about my family and its health. Nothing to negotiate. I’ve started jobs and went to the gym at 12 the very first day and never skip, so no one ever gave me a hard time about it. It’s accepted, just like its accepted that the woman with an infant rolls in whenever she feels like it.