Employing sense over gender

A renewed controversy over whether employers avoid employing women who might have a child has been stirred up by Alan Sugar, the entrepreneur and star of The Apprentice show. This appears to be based upon employers’ fears of recruits taking maternity leave in the future, or a perceived loss of flexibility and commitment from those with young children.

While a little ill-conceived, these comments have helped restart discussion over those facing such discrimination, even though such discrimination clearly contravenes equal opportunity laws. Women who have children while relatively young are particularly disadvantaged as they tend to take career breaks, work part-time and miss out on career progression, while men and women without children, and men with children, pursue theirs. Researchers, such as Mary Gregory and Sara Connelly, writing in February’s Economic Journal, have argued that while the gender pay gap between men and women has been narrowing over the years for those working full-time, it has actually been growing for people who are working part-time. In September 2007 almost exactly 50 per cent of Scottish female employees (599,000 women) worked part-time, compared to 15 per cent of men. Most part-timers are women who have had children.

However, do employers actually avoid those with young children? Much anecdotal evidence, such as Alan Sugar’s quotation, suggests the answer is yes. Recent research by a team at the Employment Research Institute at Edinburgh’s Napier University found that small and medium sized employers were considerably less likely to employ those with pre-school aged children compared to those without children or parents of children over five. There was no bias against women in general. The samples were small—a total of 167 employers across a variety of employment sectors were asked about recruiting for entry-level jobs—but the result strongly statistically significant. The employers preferred recruits who were honest, reliable and conscientious. Generally parents of young children are as likely as any other group to have these qualities, although some employers feel they might be less flexible or reliable, such as when a child is sick. However, other anecdotal evidence suggests that potential maternity leave makes some smaller firms wary of young mothers, and even young women generally, arguing that they cannot afford to lose a staff member who goes on maternity leave, especially if it has taken time to train them and they would be hard to replace. Fathers taking extended paternity leave still seem to be relatively uncommon, so this bias does not seem to extend to many men yet.

Many parents wait until their youngest child reaches five or six years before returning to work, so this research suggests that as well the standard factors of parents not wishing to leave a young child and the cost and availability of childcare, the reluctance of many employers to hire them may be a further issue.

This is not, however, an insurmountable problem. It is important that both young parents and employers are helped to overcome both real and perceived barriers to employing women with young children. Clearly more childcare is important, particularly care which is more affordable and flexible. Increased job sharing and term-time working is another. More information is needed on the high productivity of many of those with small children while they are at work, and their flexibility and reliability. It is often not true that those with small children are any less reliable than people without children.

Greater efforts are needed to help people back into careers at suitable levels, rather than coming back near the bottom of the career ladder. With men and women both retiring at 65 from 2020, even taking a decade out for childcare leaves a parent with well over three-quarters of their working age in work, so it is crucial that society helps those returning to work after extended childcare. Otherwise society is wasting valuable resources—resources which which will become more scarce with the ageing of the population overall—as well as blighting the potential of a huge part of the population.

Over recent years employers have gradually become more used to flexible working and have often seen advantages in terms of keeping and motivating good staff. While this flexibility is often applied to existing staff, it is perhaps time that employers think in these terms for new recruits. There are a lot of good potential employees out there who are being discounted because they have young children. Years ago, flexible hours were seen as threatening to some employers, while now the benefits of getting and keeping the right employee often outweigh any costs. There are real difficulties for small employers, but against this one needs to balance having the right employee for years ahead.

Finally, the evidence also indicates that it is crucial to identify the differences within groups as well as between groups. It is too simplistic to see equal pay or careers as purely a "gender thing." We need to identify which groups are really most disadvantaged if we are to genuinely try to give equal opportunities to everyone. This is not to deny that there may be broader discrimination of course. So it is crucial to take into account the role of parenthood on differences between women, and on the relatively few men who give up or limit their jobs to care for their child.

Indeed, there are many differences between mothers: for instance, those who have established a good career or have a high income before they have children may more easily afford childcare, maintain their career etc., than those who have children younger. Ultimately each person is an individual with their own set of characteristics which may be advantageous or not in different circumstances. However, it is essential that we try to identify the core sets of disadvantage if we are to move towards equal opportunities.

But work still remains to be done. Fifty years ago, my mother-in-law had to resign from her job in an insurance company once she got married. At the time there were many arguments put forward on how this was important for the efficiency of firms, the economy and for social reasons. None of them would be taken very seriously today. Perhaps in less than fifty years we will have made enough progress to look back on the wasted talent of young mothers today.

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