I have this friend. Let’s call him Will. Will and I are usually on the same page about things. But years ago, during a conversation about work, he admitted: “If I were hiring and I had to choose between a man and a woman, I’d go for the man, because the woman might get pregnant and be off work.” I was floored. He simply shrugged off my reaction. “That’s business,” he said.
Recently, I heard of another conversation between a colleague and a CEO at a work event. “He said he has to take into account whether hiring a woman around the age of 27 would be a good financial opportunity for him, considering that lots of women start to think about having babies then,” she shared. As someone in a similar age bracket, “It definitely gave me a new worry that I hadn’t previously thought up.”
Welcome to the Risk Zone: the period in which women’s potential for motherhood is negatively impacting their employability in the workplace, and the realities of parenting are leading to an overwhelming cycle of responsibility and stress. Think about it: the average age for a woman to have a child is 31, which means the Risk Zone window for conceiving and raising children spans the majority of any career. It might sound like the politics of a 1950s workplace, but it’s one that’s happening in offices across the UK today.
A YouGov poll found that 12% of employers would be reluctant to hire a woman because she may become pregnant, while 14% take this – and whether a woman already has children – into account when looking to promote staff. The charity Pregnant, Then Screwed also states that 54,000 women a year lose their job due to pregnancy and maternity discrimination and the number of working mums experiencing negative treatment have doubled to 390,000 each year.
“The most common form of discrimination for pregnant women and mothers at work is bullying and harassment. Most employers know it is unlawful to push a woman out of her job for getting pregnant, so they use other, more sinister, tactics to force her to leave,” says Joeli Brearley, who founded Pregnant Then Screwed after being fired from her job two days after she informed her employer that she was pregnant with her first child – by voicemail.
Social media is littered with women’s stories sharing how they have been made to feel uncomfortable, unwanted or even pushed out of their workplaces due to their pregnancies. One woman reports being “called a f***ing c**t” for going to a doctor’s appointment. When another reported bullying in her workplace while she was pregnant, the response was that she was “overreacting”.
And it goes beyond those who are currently parents – women are being discriminated against at work due to the assumption they will have children one day. Writer Claire was just 21 when she applied for a job at a high street bank. “One of the first questions the manager asked was whether I had children and if I had any plans to have children soon,” she says. “It was only years later, when I worked at places where I witnessed women being pushed out of the workplace after having been on maternity leave, that I realised how not okay this was. I assume had I said I did have plans for children that she wouldn’t have offered me the job, which is shocking.”
"Women should not have to fight this hard for equality in the workplace."
Not all women will choose to – or will be in a position to – bear children. Yet under this outlook, they could all potentially be overlooked for opportunities. The “logic” behind this appears to be that a woman might go on paid maternity leave (and it is usually mothers – a report by EMW found that just over 170,000 men in the UK took parental leave in 2021, compared with 650,000 women), and cost the business money.
Employers are legally required to pay statutory maternity pay (SMP) – 90% of the worker’s average weekly earnings (AWE) before tax for the first six weeks and then £172.48 or 90% of their AWE (whichever is lower) for the remaining 33 weeks. “Some employers top up SMP but they do this as it has benefits for the business, including attracting and retaining talent. There is a misconception that maternity leave is expensive for employers – it isn’t,” says Brearley. Most companies can claim back 92% of SMP from the government, and small businesses can claim 100% back plus 3% in Small Employers’ Relief.
The added cost lies in paying for cover during the period of parental leave. Post-pandemic, in a cost of living crisis, small businesses in particular may struggle to pay for the additional cover – then the wider team has to take on a larger workload as a result. This was the case for Tom, 36, who works in IT. “A few months after my manager was brought in, she announced she was pregnant. She ended up having three children in three years and while we were so happy for her, it did mean we had to continually absorb her workload, which was a struggle. ”
For women who run their own businesses, there’s the added pressure of maintaining their business while caring for themselves and their child, post-birth. “As soon as I found out I was pregnant I began saving every penny I could,” says personal trainer and stage school owner Melissa, 30. “I knew that I’d be getting the bare minimum from the government due to being self-employed. I took six months’ leave, which meant paying for cover staff and losing a lot of money. My second business completely closed while I was off and I’m now trying to build it back up from scratch.”
For those who are on leave from a larger company, it’s expected their job will be there for them to return to. Which is why when publicity director Jessica, 32, received two hours’ notice to join a call with a group of other women – over half of whom were also on maternity leave or had recently returned to work after having a child – she was shocked to hear they were all risk of redundancy, with one role available. “In the redundancy consultation they referenced that I was on maternity leave but when I flagged my rights, they said they would have to check,” she explains.” I felt like I had to educate them on the situation they had put me in.”
The rights Jessica refers to is legislation to protect women in this exact situation. Gov.uk states that “before offering redundancy to an employee on maternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave, employers have an obligation to offer them a suitable alternative vacancy where one exists”. For Jessica and the rest of her group, this is yet to happen.
It’s clear the pressures of Risk Zone extend beyond possibilities of pregnancy, well into life as a working parent. As marketing director Millie, 30, who is currently pregnant, discovered, it can even affect which jobs you apply for. “I haven’t been enjoying work for a while now. I started looking at new jobs last autumn but I knew I was trying for a baby and lots of places don’t offer great maternity leave until you’ve been there for a year or so, plus you don’t know how supportive they will be. If I were a man, I would have just gone for it and moved companies, which would have been better for my career development,” Millie continues. “Now, I feel a bit stagnant in my role and will likely just muddle through and reassess things next year.”
Jessica adds that interviewing for jobs with a baby is “a bit of a minefield”. “My interviews have all been virtual so far, which has helped. I have to try and predict my baby’s nap times so that I can do interviews, or check when my partner is working from home. If I have to do them in person, it will mean even more juggling.”
Let's talk money.
The interviews themselves bring more complexities. “I don’t know if I would mention that I had a child in a job,” Millie says. “I'd probably do research and see if there was information on how the company supports parents first.” She adds that her husband has not shared these concerns during his recent job search. “He openly mentioned that I was pregnant in one of his interviews. As a woman, maybe I’m more aware of the discrimination that could potentially come with that, and when I explained how it could have counted against him, even subconsciously – he hadn’t even thought of it.”
Jenifer, 30, who works for a major banking firm, explains that while most companies have policies in place against gender and pregnancy discrimination, it all depends on who’s implementing them: “As much as good ideas can come from the top, it still is team-dependent. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that a woman in a (typically more male-dominated) finance team being on maternity leave was a much bigger issue.”
She also explains that for big companies, the financial aspect of covering someone on maternity leave is not likely to be the biggest driver for prejudice against women at work. What appears to be a pressure point is sometimes the mother’s potential need for flexibility upon their return.
Jason, 34, who works in financial services, explains that businesses are “getting more aggressive in terms of getting people back in the office. Major organisations are asking for managing directors to be back in the office five days a week, which diminishes any flexibility in working pattern,” he says. These kinds of policies narrow the possibility for women to return to work post-birth in the same capacity as before – in fact, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that 9% of mothers said they had received negative comments from their employer or colleagues due to their flexible working requests being approved, and 29% weren’t allowed the flexible hours they had requested during their pregnancy.
This impact on office relationships is another casualty of the Risk Zone. “Typically, a way to get a new job is networking,” says Jenifer. “If you’re not in the office as much, you’re not meeting as many people, not attending drinks with colleagues. This could lead to women not being considered for roles because they’re not as ‘well-known’ and not getting that facetime with management.”
Jason echoes that sentiment, explaining that while his company now offers six months paid paternity leave, “I’m not sure I’d take the full period, or at least not the whole thing in one go – in part because I would worry that I’d be left out of things, being away from the office for that amount of time.”
Figures show that taking leave does have an effect on career progression. The GEO found that just 13% of mothers move up the career ladder in the three years after the birth of a child, compared with 21% of fathers – because, statistically, women are more likely to reduce their hours at work after having children. “The cost of childcare has played a huge role in this. [The UK has] the third most expensive childcare in the developed world. Our research shows that 76% of mothers say it no longer makes financial sense for them to work,” says Brearley.
For those who do choose – or have to – go back to work, the emotional toll of the Risk Zone then comes into play: balancing professional duties with trying to be a “good” parent. “It’s mentally draining, knowing that I have to send my child to nursery to be able to build my business” Melissa explains.
While hybrid working can help mothers to manage these pressures – allowing them to do the school run, for example, or staying home when their child is sick – the lines between work and home life becomes increasingly blurred. “I’ve seen a situation at my office where the mum works from home four to five days a week. She works before the kids get up, then gets them ready, logs back on until the end of the school day and after they’ve gone to bed, she logs back on until 10pm to finish work,” says Jenifer. “It’s amazing that work days can be so accommodating, but when do you have time for yourself? The pressure and expectation to take your company up on this ‘very generous offer’ of working from home means there’s no give.”
Is working mum burnout the final stage of the Risk Zone? “I am worried about having work responsibilities back on my plate,” adds Jessica. “I constantly feel like my brain has a never-ending to-do list of parent things. Adding to that seems a little overwhelming at times.”
Fortunately for women who are returning to work, new legislation is in development to provide more security than ever. The Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination Bill has been backed by the government and is set to provide further protection for those on parental leave. If this becomes law, companies will be unable to make a woman redundant from the moment she discloses her pregnancy until the child is 18 months old.
But what can you do if you’re in the Risk Zone now? Jessica has made the decision to be open with potential employers about her needs: “There may be times where I'll require more flexibility at work and when I'm willing to give that to my employer, I want them to do the same.”
Job sharing could also be an option for those wanting to go back in a reduced capacity, with two people working part-time to split the responsibilities of one role without leaving a “gap” on their days off. According to the ONS, the majority of those working in shared roles in the UK are women, and job sharing platform Gemini3 found a 30% increase in productivity within job sharing partnerships. As a result of several successful examples, the Civil Service has now launched its own internal job share register, and there has even been the emergence of companies such as Roleshare: a “talent marketplace” allowing people to co-apply and share jobs. Change is, it seems, on the horizon.
Whether or not children are in your future plans, as a woman the most important thing you can do is to understand that while overcoming this dated mix of societal, financial and personal pressures might feel impossible, the discrimination the Risk Zone causes is a reality that can be combated. “If you are treated any differently for simply being a woman who could get pregnant then you should create a paper train immediately. It’s important to capture comments on emails, take notes with dates, and follow up on emails about conversations that have happened,” advises Brearley. So know your rights, know the law, and know you aren’t in this alone.
For more information on your rights as a woman at work, call Pregnant Then Screwed’s advice line on 0161 2229879 or visit pregnantthenscrewed.com
