Half of working mothers say childcare during Covid-19 has damaged their careers. The increased childcare pressures are having a huge impact for working mothers.
25% of mothers said their company had not been flexible enough to help them achieve their work duties whilst having to focus on childcare. It has been a stressful time for everyone. I can personally speak from experience when I say those first 6 weeks of lockdown when work was more hectic than ever (I work in HR and we were closing down retail stores across 12 European countries) were horrendous. The juggle of back to back zoom calls and a needy 4 year old almost broke me. My stress levels were off the chart., I wasn’t sleeping so in a viscious cycle of tiredness and stress.
Mothers are struggling and exhusted with trying to get it all done. The insights shared in this article were the prompt to write this blog. Woman have been managing work around toddler sleep times, and working in the evening. There needs to be the recognition from employers than Mothers want to get the work done, we are passionate to acheive in our careers, and if those emails are happening in the evening when the kids are in bed, companies need to show flexibility.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and University College London (UCL) interviewed 3,500 families and found that mums were only able to do one hour of uninterrupted work, for every three hours done by dads. Evidence shows the women are picking up the lions share of the work at home even when both parents are working. This isn’t an anti-Dads statement, it is just sharing what the research tells us.
Let’s hope that the lockdown will help improve the division of duties in households. When both parents work, they both need to share the home stuff. The risk is a widening of the gender pay gap and more women stepping back from the workforce or holding back in pushing herself forwards.