Part-time mothers ‘slide down jobs ladder’

A study found 44 per cent of British mothers who go back to work part-time feel as though they were forced to take lower skilled jobs than they would have if they worked full-time.

A survey of 1,600 part-time working mothers found that 48 per cent of those on low to middle incomes felt they would have had a higher skilled job if they had gone to work full-time.

More than a third of women on higher incomes (36 per cent) felt the same, according to the research conducted by parenting website Netmums and the Resolution Foundation think tank.

Netmums criticised employers for “wasting an incredible talent pool”.

Working part time was much more likely to have been a positive choice for higher income and better educated women.

Eight out of ten women on a higher income and 76 per cent of those with a degree said they had freely chosen to work part time, whereas just 65 per cent of those on a low to middle income, 59 per cent with GCSEs and 50 per cent with no qualifications said it was a free choice.

Mothers on low to middle incomes also identified the main barriers stopping them from returning to work full-time. The high costs of childcare were seen as one of the main reasons.

Parents in the UK spend 33 per cent of their net household income on childcare compared to on OECD average of 13 per cent.

Other issues included working longer hours not being financially worthwhile and working full time not being flexible enough to fit with childcare.

Sally Russell, co-founder of Netmums, said: “Employers are wasting an incredible pool of talent by forcing mums into lower paid, part-time work.

“It’s unbelievable that women are encouraged to climb the career ladder only to be forced back to the lowest rung when they have children.”

Resolution Foundation director of research Vidhya Alakeson added: “Childcare costs are a big issue in the UK and are eating up a large chunk of household incomes, stopping many women from working longer hours.

“Such barriers to work are bad news for the economy, but also bad news for the living standards of households.”

A 33-year-old nurse from Edinburgh, who did not want to be named, had an extremely difficult time when she tried to return to work. For her, though, it was her husband who ended up resigning as a result.

Although her employer, the NHS, allowed her to work part- time on a shift basis, the restaurant where her husband was a manager repeatedly said they could not fit in with his requests for flexibility so they could share the childcare duties.

“He had been up front with them after his interview saying he needed to be flexible but every week they were telling us he couldn’t have that day off,” she said.

“We don’t have any family nearby who could help out and it got to the stage where we had to make the decision that he would resign.”

The study, The price of motherhood: women and part-time work, published today, was based on a survey of working mothers across the UK.