‘If you want equality, it’s going to cost’: Women in social enterprise urge employers and investors to address ‘motherhood penalty’

There is a need for “a systemic change” in workplace culture to better accommodate people with caring responsibilities, concluded Pioneers Post reporter Laura Joffre, who hosted a webinar earlier this month, titled ‘Who cares? Motherhood, care and social entrepreneurship’.

The WISE100 Lunchtime Takeaways webinars are run by Pioneers Post in partnership with NatWest Social & Community Capital. Joffre, who recently came back to work from maternity leave, was joined by a panel of women working in social enterprise, who shared their insights on how employers, investors and staff can better accommodate those with caring responsibilities in the workplace. 

The speakers were Camilla Rigby, co-founder & CEO of The Women’s Work Lab, Samantha Cuffy, programme manager at The Women’s Work Lab, Esther Foreman, founder and CEO of The Social Change Agency and The Social Change Nest, and Victoria Papworth, CEO of NatWest Social & Community Capital.

Address ‘the motherhood penalty’

Esther Foreman said that having her son made her more aware of “the structural barriers” facing mothers in the workplace: “We’ve all heard of the fatherhood bonus: that if you’re a man and you have a child, you tend to earn more over your lifetime because you’re seen as more reliable. Whereas there’s a motherhood penalty, where women earn less over their careers because they work part-time and do the school pick-up.”

You either put your hands in your pocket or make the women stay in the kitchen

To run a business that operates outside of “the linear fashion of the working week” to accommodate mothers, Foreman said, employers and investors should be willing to part with money. “When your investors go, ‘Why is your overhead so high?’, [say] ‘Because I employ women. What’s your problem? I shouldn’t be chastised for having overheads that reflect that. If you want equality, it's going to cost. So you either put your hands in your pocket or make the women stay in the kitchen.’”

Foreman also admitted that, as the CEO of a social enterprise, she had assumed that she wouldn’t fall victim to the motherhood penalty, but came to realise that this also applies to female bosses. She said: “There are loads of structural interventions you can make to help stop discrimination for returning-to-work mothers [who are] employees, but there are no interventions for the structural inequalities faced as a female boss who has caring responsibilities.”

• Hear more from Esther Foreman in our Good Leaders podcast: ‘I’ve had three or four significant burnouts – when you’ve got a small child you have to just get on with it’

She added that business leaders who are mothers often have to sacrifice opportunities that could benefit the company: “There are some really hard choices you have to make when you have children as a CEO. I can’t network freely in the evenings anymore, which has obviously had an impact on the business. I’ve had to turn down talks because I’d have to spend £15 an hour on a babysitter, which is not taxable.”

Create an environment of flexibility, trust and understanding

Camilla Rigby, whose organisation helps women in south-west England into meaningful work, said that employers should be willing to implement flexible working hours, phased hours on returning after leave, and school holiday adjustments for employees with caring duties. The majority of her team works part-time and often have a “core working day between 10am and 2pm”, she said, adding: “We recognise more than anyone that access to affordable child care is a huge barrier for women working, so we work with our mums to find out what works. We are mum-led.”

Rigby also said that employers need to build “a culture of trust” to accommodate the flexible schedules of employees with caring responsibilities, adding: “If anything [needs to be done] outside of our core working hours, we trust our team to get the work done.”

Her colleague Samantha Cuffy echoed this, saying that flexibility of being able to “work around [her] family was a game changer” on returning to the workplace after taking 11 years out to raise her children. She added: “The trust I receive from my employers to get the job done actually helps me feel less pressure, [and allows me] to work more efficiently, more effectively and more comfortably.”

Both Rigby and Cuffy also stressed the need to be “understanding” and “mindful” towards employees raising children with additional needs. Rigby said that the difficulties she faced accessing support for her neurodivergent child “reflected the inequality that exists in having a child with special educational needs”.

However, she also acknowledged the intersectional disparities between mothers from different backgrounds. She said: “I’m a British-born, white woman educated to university level. I have a stable home life. The fact that I, with the privilege that I’ve experienced in life, found it as difficult as I did, has highlighted to me the further inequality that exists within our world at the moment in terms of accessing support for our children.”

Not just a ‘mum issue’

The discussion also touched on other types of caring responsibilities. Victoria Papworth of NatWest Social & Community Capital highlighted the duty of caring for elderly relatives, saying: “We’ve spoken a lot about motherhood today, but there are lots of other types of caring responsibilities. There’s the guilt of feeling like you’re a bad child or the huge financial implications of having to sell your house and move closer to [your parents] because they need you to be on their doorstep.”

Rigby also emphasised that fathers needed to be included in conversations about flexible working, noting that men are often “intimidated” by such discussions because they assume it is “supposedly a women’s issue”, when in fact a “stale, grey man” will probably be making most of the decisions in an organisation.

I really despise the fact that working part-time is always deemed to be ‘a mum issue’... men can and should want to be doing more

She added: “I appreciate that the name of our social enterprise is not overly inclusive at times and I really despise the fact that working part-time is always deemed to be ‘a mum issue’. Even if you’re not the sole carer and you’re in a nuclear family, men can and should want to be doing more. When it comes to flexible working [the conversation] has been so gendered, but it very much needs to become more neutral.”

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