30% of mums are losing money to keep their career
According to early results of our 2014 Child Care and Workforce Participation Survey*, which has polled almost 1500 mums with one or more pre-school children, being back at work is not financially viable for almost a third (30%) of mums who have returned to work.
These women are working purely to keep sane and keep their hand in to prevent themselves from becoming unemployable when their children are old enough to go to school.
The reason for this lack of viability is largely due to the cost of child care combined with a high cost of living that's out of kilter with people's salaries.
Our 2013 Child Care and Workforce Participation Survey revealed 60% of parents are paying over $300 per week on child care fees, and that doesn't include the cost of transport. Almost a fifth of women who have not returned to work said it is simply not financially viable to do so.
One in 10 women who are currently not working said they have not gone back to work due to lack of employer flexibility and 17% said they couldn't find a suitable job.
Can industries and the Australian economy afford to lose this many female workers due to being out of step with the needs of working families?
An article in Dynamic Business last year said that the reality is women are "walking away from corporate Australia". Or they're choosing to work in a different way. The Australian Bureau of Statistics this year reported a marked decrease in women in full-time employment in lieu of an increase in part-time work.
And while the number of female full time employees might be decreasing, the lack of viability for working for someone else is spurring on mums on both sides of the world to become Mumpreneurs - stay-at-home mothers who keep one eye on the children and another on a fledgling business. The female business owner is on the increase as women are choosing to go it alone and set up their own companies from home.
In a survey undertaken by UK insurer Direct Line, of 700 mothers with children under 10, nearly two thirds said they were considering running a business from home in the next three years, believing this would make the family unit better off as a whole.
Almost one in five said they were motivated specifically by the very high costs of childcare, which offset the financial benefits of working in an office or other site away from home.
The changes in technology over the past 10 years have really enabled women-to lead flexible, innovative and globally-competitive businesses, and many of these businesses are actually online businesses, e.g. online clothing, accessories or homewares stores, virtual consultancies, blogs and online magazines to name a few.
Even if we don't choose to start an empire, we have been able to change the way we work entirely. We can take calls and make emails from pretty much anywhere. Who needs to be in an office when you can be having a conversation with a client while you watch your child play on the swings?!
Technology has allowed many women to start and build their businesses regardless of the three elements that were generally barriers in the past family responsibilities, geographic location or operating from home.
Because of technology these things are no longer barriers for women entrepreneurs and many companies are starting to realise that if they want to retain their female staff, they also need to get on board with offering more flexible working solutions.
Starting up a business isn't everyone's cup of tea however. Not everyone has the entrepreneurial gene, which is why employers, governments and families need to sort out the disparity between pay and child care costs that makes work a non-viable option for so many mothers.
We'd like to hear about your experiences with coping with the financial pressures of work vs motherhood. If you want to have your say, we've extended our survey, which closes on Friday.
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