Are baby steps towards gender equality enough to support working mothers?

BEFORE you rush off to buy a last-minute Valentine's Day gift, consider if the woman in your life really needs a bouquet of cliche roses and a box of stale chocolates. Perhaps, what she really wants is for you to do the laundry, or make dinner, or pick up your socks for once. Instead of cheap gifts once a year, what she really needs is for you to advocate for equal pay, share in household responsibilities, and show her some respect.

Amid Singapore's strides towards gender equality, working mothers form a group that is still often overlooked. The term "working mum" itself implies that a woman's default role in a family unit is as the primary caregiver, and that her choice to participate in the labour force is a deviation from that norm.

The label "working mum" also perpetuates an often romanticised idea of someone who "does it all" - she is expected to excel in her career without forgoing her responsibilities as a mother and homemaker. Meanwhile, fathers ("working dads" - or just "dads" for that matter) are not held to the same standards when it comes to domestic responsibilities.

The gender gap in unpaid labour

"In Singapore, when we look at couples with young children, our research has shown that women take on twice as much caregiving and housework responsibilities compared to men, even when they are both working full-time," says Yeung Wei-Jun Jean, provost-chair professor of sociology and founding director of the Centre for Family and Population Research at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

These expectations - that many women impose upon themselves - have an impact on decisions facing women when it comes to their working lives, their careers, and even whether to start a family.

The Ministry of Manpower's Labour Force in Sinagpore 2020 report indicated that the gender pay gap starts not at the onset of both men's and women's careers, but in their 30s (that is, when women typically start to have children), and continues for the rest of their lives, notes Shailey Hingorani, head of research and advocacy at the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) Singapore.

The gender pay gap for women compared to men in their late 30s is 13 per cent; the gap increases to 18 per cent for those in their late 40s.

"Numerous studies have quantified the wage gap to be of thousands of dollars between working mothers and child-free women over a lifetime," adds Hingorani.

For the gender gap at work to improve, real efforts must be made to close the gender gap at home. And while these behavioural changes will need to be set in motion within the home, employers too should work to facilitate change.

According to a 2020 study by United Women Singapore and market research firm Ipsos, while almost 9 in 10 Singaporeans agree that household chores can be equally shared between husband and wife, in practice these gender gaps still exist.

The 500-person survey found that women admit to doing more than their male counterparts thought they were doing. For example, 43 per cent of women said they were the main person responsible for carrying out house cleaning tasks, while only 24 per cent of men thought women did so. Among the parents surveyed, 47 per cent of the mums said they were happy about their household and caregiving responsibilities, compared to 78 per cent of dads.

Beyond the disparity in happiness, this also means women on average do more unpaid labour than men, which then adds to the gender wage gap. These imbalanced roles in the home also affect women's decisions when choosing career paths.

The path less travelled

The Business Times spoke with Sher-Li Torrey, founder of Mums@Work, a recruitment and networking agency aimed at supporting mothers in their career journey. Since it started in 2010, Mums@Work has collected over 48,000 members.

According to Torrey, there is a large majority of women who opt for part-time jobs after becoming mothers, because of the flexibility it provides them. They are also more likely to choose positions which allow them to work remotely, in order to meet the responsibilities at home.

However, part-time employees are less likely to be promoted compared to full-time staff, notes Ang Wan May, managing partner for Singapore at global leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder. Before the pandemic made working from home a norm, remote workers were also less likely to move up the ladder because they lacked the opportunity to network or physically show their commitment to the company, Ang adds.

Some mothers turn to entrepreneurship for flexibility. However, during her 12 years on the job, Torrey has also seen many women giving up opportunities or selling off their businesses after they became "too big".

Mothers who maintained their full-time jobs were also more likely to turn down promotions if the new position required them to commit more hours or travel more, out of fear that it would conflict with their responsibilities at home. Fathers, on the other hand, were less likely to reject promotions for this reason.

Egon Zehnder's Ang notes that for women to excel, there needs to be equal responsibilities among couples. After over a decade of advising company chief executives and board members, Ang has observed that many female leaders were either single, or had "very supportive partners".

That said, the gender gap is often not a matter of choice, as many companies still have discriminatory hiring practices.

Workplace discrimination and the motherhood penalty

The motherhood penalty is a term coined by sociologists referring to systematic disadvantages that women encounter in their careers after becoming a mother. However, gender-based workplace discrimination begins before a woman even becomes a mother.

Torrey says: "A couple of years back, we actually heard a GM (general manager) say to us, 'I don't usually hire newly married women, because they'll probably want maternity leave soon.'"

Aware's Hingorani adds that women with caregiving responsibilities are judged to be less committed to the job, which is then assumed to compromise their performance.

Conversely, men with children are seen as more committed to work, compared to women with children. "Their presumed role as breadwinner of a family is thought to place extra pressure on men to do well professionally," Hingorani says.

Legally, companies in Singapore are obliged to give maternity benefits to women who have been in their employ for 3 months or more, and dismissal of mothers on grounds of their caregiving responsibilities may be considered wrongful. However, there are currently no specific protections for mothers who return to the workplace, which exposes them to many discriminatory behaviours, Hingorani adds.

For starters, hiring managers often dismiss returning mothers' credentials after seeing significant career gaps, regardless of their previous experience, Torrey says.

She adds: "A lot of women also don't go back to their previous positions because those roles require very up-to-date industry knowledge, especially in sectors such as investment banking and consulting. At the same time, when they apply to a different role, they're often rejected because they don't have the exact experience before."

Those who do get hired find their salaries pegged to their last-drawn full-time salary before they completely or partially withdrew from the workforce to care for their children, as opposed to the market rate for the same job, further widening the wage gap.

In the workplace, breastfeeding mothers also face challenges with expressing their milk at various points of the day. Some employers do not allow these pump breaks because they are seen to lower productivity. Among those who allow pumping breaks, some do not provide nursing rooms, while at the same time disallow mothers pumping at their desks because it is "distracting". This pushes mothers to pump in toilets, which risks contamination in the milk, not to mention being very uncomfortable.

At Mums@Work, Torrey initially wanted to serve this large demographic of returning mothers. But after delving into the community, she found that many single and childless women also faced career gaps after taking time to care for their ageing parents, as caregiving is still largely seen as a woman's responsibility.

According to a recent poll by the Ministry of Social and Family Development, 79 per cent of respondents said that daughters were more likely to take their elders out for a medical appointment, compared to sons.

Torrey then decided to open her programmes to all "returning talents" regardless of gender and age. In 2019, Mums@Work conducted a career fair, which brought together such returning talents and companies that are looking to hire from this particular demographic.

"We had over 300 women sign up, and maybe like 2 men. So my point is that the number of men who take career gaps to look after family is not as high," Torrey says.

Turning baby steps into leaps of progress

They say it takes a village to raise a child. This means support from mums, dads, company and government policies. But in many societies including Singapore, it seems mothers bear the brunt of the task.

On the company front, employers can start by reviewing their hiring policies. In addition to career fairs, Mums@Work also provides training services for companies looking to hire returning talent. This includes teaching hiring managers to look at a person's resume beyond their last working date, as well as educating them on the flexibility that a parent might need as an employee.

Aware also suggests companies provide breastfeeding mothers with proper accommodations and time to express their breast milk. Singapore's HealthHub advocates for breastfeeding, however the government currently has no policies in place to ensure that workplaces have adequate arrangements for breastfeeding women.

Egon Zehnder's Ang adds that to improve retention and development of diverse talents, firms and governments can provide equal amounts of paid maternity and paternity leave. "It signals that taking care of the child is for both the genders," she says.

Working fathers in Singapore are currently entitled to 2 weeks paternity leave, while mothers get 16 weeks. However, fathers can apply to use up to 4 weeks of the mother's time as part of a shared parental leave arrangement.

NUS's Yeung adds that providing childcare subsidies will not only give mothers more flexibility in terms of career options, but also turn child-rearing from unpaid labour into one that generates income for the childcare providers.

"In Singapore, women's rights have changed so much in such a short period of time. Within only 5 decades, the education and employment rate of women have shot up so quickly. However, the expectations and social norms about a woman's role in society has not caught up with all that. It's definitely not changing fast enough," Yeung says.