Unfortunately, women must often still choose between motherhood and professional life

WOMEN face many obstacles in their working lives. Motherhood is one of them. Many female employees assert that their family responsibilities have slowed their progress in the professional sphere.

More than 7,000 women from seven countries were asked about the impact of motherhood on their work in Avon's "Global Progress for Women" survey, reported by Stylist magazine.

A third of the women said that their family life, and more specifically childcare, has had a negative impact on their career advancement. And the underlying reason is that women often find it difficult to balance work and family responsibilities. 

Although many governments are extending paternity leaves in order to encourage fathers' involvement in the home, mothers, on average, still tend to be more involved in childcare and education in many parts of the world.

This phenomenon is linked to the persistent idea of a natural maternal instinct and the idea that females are born to be mothers.

As a result of pressure on women's time combined with societal pressures, women often choose to reduce or stop their professional activity when they have a child. 

However, more flexible approaches to how work is organized could help them to more effectively balance their family and professional lives.

While flexibility has become a key value in many companies since the Covid pandemic, the women interviewed by Avon found inequalities in practice. For example, 41% of women said it was more difficult for them to work flexibly than their male counterparts. 

The motherhood penalty

This inequity is due to the fact that managers are often reluctant to allow mothers to work remotely, casting doubt on their commitment and mistakenly believing that women would be less focused on their tasks in their home environment.

A study conducted in Germany in 2019, however, showed the opposite, establishing that women working from home spend, on average, more hours per day on their work tasks than when they are in the office.

All these gender stereotypes show that women pay what sociologists call a "motherhood penalty."

This term refers to the preconception that female employees who have children are less dedicated to their work than their male counterparts. This hinders their career development prospects, as well as their possibilities for promotions and salary increases.

There is an urgent need for companies and governments to address these issues in order to enable women to reach their professional potential, according to Angela Cretu, CEO of Avon.

"[M]any women are still experiencing barriers when it comes to freedom of choice, work and the opportunity to earn. We want to change that. Removing the barriers to economic participation that women face is crucial to helping drive progress for women," she told Stylist. – ETX Daily Up, March 9, 2023