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Mothers 'face job discrimination'
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
"Women face ongoing discrimination in the workplace, a major review of inequality in the UK suggests.
A partnered mother with a child aged under 11 is 45% less likely to be in work than a partnered man, the Equalities Review says."
Source
What do you guys think of this? I know of people who have openly admitted they would not employ a woman of childbearing age. I've heard on the news that stay at home mothers are also blamed for this. On 'Have your Say' (hardly the epitomy of objectivity, but people's opinions nonetheless) the highest recommended comment was:
"If you want to have kids, then the mother should forget working for the first 10 years of the childs life to concentrate on bringing him/her up properley through their formative years.
If you can't do without working, do without the babies.
Get your priorities right.
Children aren't fashion accessories."
Now I know that if my partner and I waited until we were financially secure until we had children, I'd be way past the menopause. If I have kids, I know I'd have to go back to work (Bad Mother already) as I've invested too much into med school to not work, and I'd probably be earning more than my partner when it comes to having kids. Given the choice I'd love to work part-time and spend some of the time at home (Bad Mother again).
A partnered mother with a child aged under 11 is 45% less likely to be in work than a partnered man, the Equalities Review says."
Source
What do you guys think of this? I know of people who have openly admitted they would not employ a woman of childbearing age. I've heard on the news that stay at home mothers are also blamed for this. On 'Have your Say' (hardly the epitomy of objectivity, but people's opinions nonetheless) the highest recommended comment was:
"If you want to have kids, then the mother should forget working for the first 10 years of the childs life to concentrate on bringing him/her up properley through their formative years.
If you can't do without working, do without the babies.
Get your priorities right.
Children aren't fashion accessories."
Now I know that if my partner and I waited until we were financially secure until we had children, I'd be way past the menopause. If I have kids, I know I'd have to go back to work (Bad Mother already) as I've invested too much into med school to not work, and I'd probably be earning more than my partner when it comes to having kids. Given the choice I'd love to work part-time and spend some of the time at home (Bad Mother again).
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Comments
The whole idea that people should choose not to have children tickles me immensely- if we all did that we'd be extinct. There's something to be said for not having children if your only income is benefits, though I disagree, but as for financial security? We're secure now with both of us earning, but if Ellie gave up work to be a mother we'd be screwed. On one income we couldn't pay the mortgage because of the house prices, no doubt driven up by the same BTL cunts who are now saying you shouldn't have bairns if you can't afford them without working.
I work at quite a big place, so in real terms there is no problem with someone going off for 6 months and then coming back half time and all that, but if you have 10 employee's its got to be a real drain.
I think companies with less than 40 employees should get more help with this than they do, and then I think you would see this discrimination definitely lessen. That and decent child care facilities too.
I do understand the logic in small companies but there should be huge fines for companies that discriminate, and the fines should be applied directly to the managers who discriminate.
They may well pay the maternity pay, but that doesnt exactly replace the person does it?
"A partnered mother with a child aged under 11 is 45% less likely to be in work than a partnered man, "
"The report found disabled people were 29% less likely to be in employment than non-disabled people. "
"other disadvantaged groups are Pakistani and Bangladeshi women who are 30% less likely to be in work than white women of similar ages and qualifications. "
Do not on there own, tell us anything about discrimination.
"It cites a survey of 122 recruitment agencies that revealed more than 70% of them had been asked by clients to avoid hiring pregnant women or those of childbearing age. "
This one might.
I think everyone can see why firms would be reluctant to hire pregnant women, and I personally see nothing morally wrong in that.
The second part is more worrying but it needs to be far more precise, what kind of recruitment agencies? Which clients? What was the precise question in the survey?
Considering 'childbearing age' is probably 15-45 I find it hard to beleve that many employers really consider that any woman in this age group is in some way 'risky'.
In short it seems very hard to draw any concrete conclusions just from this info.
Yes, that's the key. Employers are left to use someone who does not have the same experience or skills as the mother that has taken maternity leave. They also might not be able to afford to train them if they know they will be going again in a year or so. And then what happens, from what I haveseen where I work, is the mother then wants to come back - but only part time ... this is difficult for big firms, let alone small ones.
Which is why I think there is discrimination, its not (like with racism or similar) because the employeer just doesnt like the woman, its because the employeer is scared of the costs involved. If the government took more of these costs then the discrimination would be really cut, until that point it will continue.
"The presence of this penalty suggests that disability really does reduce people?s job chances, but it
is not clear, from this analysis alone, what causes the problem ? whether disabled people are
unable to work; whether they genuinely prefer not to work, or whether employers discriminate
against them."
Which just shows that the authors realise that there findings should not be too strongly interpreted, even if journalists, and those with political motive don't.
"It shows also that almost nine in
ten inactive Pakistani and Bangladeshi women say they do not want to work.
"
So the figure for discrimination is obviously far lower than the media would suggest.
To think that some believe the BBC has higher standards of journalism than most!
You fucking wouldn't, would you?
Bong, I kind of agree with you about the Government supporting small businesses, but at the same time, if a business cannot afford to comply with employment legislation then it should not be in business.
Of course, and I am certainly not trying to justify the discrimination, I'm just saying that I think the only way to tackle this is to help small businesses more. Unfortunately we cant have lots of lovely Scandinavian style social benefits without paying for them.
Which is fine if your a business but not so easy to justify if your a charity or community based organisation who's aim isn't to make a profit.
Doesn't that completely contradict what you were saying on the 'Subway' thread when defending small businesses?
A charity or community-based organisation should be setting an example and allowing flexible working.
My views on this don't contradict anything else. If the only way your company stays in business is through systematic discrimination then you don't deserve to be in business. There are few businesses that cannot afford to allow some flexibility in terms of working patterns and working hours.
And most of them do - I am however pointing out that in doing so they incurr ever increasing costs - should a small charity effectively use funds raised from the public to cover the cost of a staff members materinty leave and cover? Or should they instead recive help from the government in order to set an example to other employers?
Temps might get paid crap, but they certainly dont cost that little. I agree with you that in most cases businesses can absorb the cost without any real difficulty but with small places it is hard.