Pregnant pause
Does lengthy maternity leave help or hinder a career?
Natasha Pritchard isn’t one to let diary clashes get in the way of her ambition, even when the events in question are as significant as giving birth and getting promoted. In 2013, she was heading towards being made head of marketing for consumer electronics company Proof Cam when she decided to try for a baby.
“The timing collided,” she says. “I knew that if I worked hard enough they would offer me that role. But we were also hoping to start a family.” She discovered she was pregnant two months after being offered the promotion. She knew that family life would have to fit around her work schedule, so she decided to take only two weeks of maternity leave.
“I really didn’t want to let the opportunity go,” she recalls. “You’ve got to have some balls to do it though, because people do question why you’ve gone back so quickly.” Although her company put no pressure on her, Pritchard felt it was necessary if she wanted to succeed. The fast-paced sales world, she feared, would have left her behind if she had taken longer away from her desk.
According to UK law, two weeks is the minimum length of time a woman must take off work after giving birth. Eligible employees can take up to 52 weeks but new research shows that some employers are placing pressure on them to forfeit it. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has found bias against working parents. Its survey of 1,106 UK employers reveals that a third believe new and expectant mothers are “less interested in career progression” than their childless counterparts.
According to the EHRC research, UK companies are behaving in ways that could be deemed illegal. Nearly 60 per cent of employers surveyed say women should have to disclose a pregnancy during the recruitment process. And 36 per cent say it is reasonable to ask about their plans to start a family. “The Equality Act makes discrimination on the grounds of certain characteristics illegal,” says Danielle Ayres, the employment lawyer at Gorvins Solicitors. “If you do get asked, you can refuse to answer.”
Last week, Naomi Hall* attended an interview at an events firm. The 29-year-old was confident things were going well but then she told them she was pregnant. “They suddenly started saying it might have to be freelance work rather than a full-time position,” she says. Hall, whose baby is due in September, says she plans to take six to eight weeks off work. Her partner will stay at home.
Joeli Brearley, 39, has become a mouthpiece for disenfranchised mothers since she was fired from a job four months into her own pregnancy. She set up campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed in 2015 to document incidents of maternity discrimination, and runs a mentoring scheme, pairing women who have been through the experience with those who are embarking on legal proceedings. “The experience left me heartbroken, my career was in tatters and my confidence was on the floor,” she says. “After I had the baby, I attended parent groups and discovered that this was happening all the time.”
More than 100 women contacted Brearley in the wake of this week’s research to share tales of discrimination during the recruitment process. She says it’s employers who ultimately lose out: “There are almost five million working mothers in the UK, and countless more who want to work. Employers are not recruiting the best person for the job.”
Some would argue that lengthy maternity leaves in some cases could be holding women back. It’s an uncomfortable truth that in countries like Brazil, China and Russia – which offer lower statutory maternity periods, women often hold a higher proportion of executive roles than their Scandinavian counterparts or the US, where one in four women takes just two weeks off after giving birth, like former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who had just a fortnight’s leave in 2012 after having twins.
Might Pritchard, then, have been on to something? She doesn’t regret her decision but has now left her marketing job for a flexible role that allows her more time with her daughters. “I needed more balance,” she says.
“The solution is to create a system that encourages more fathers to take time out,” says Brearley. “New mums can access six weeks’ leave at 90 per cent pay, but new dads can’t. In Sweden, where fathers are given three months leave on a ‘use it or lose it basis’, far fewer women encounter discrimination.”
She adds: “The idea that pregnant women and mums are a liability is absurd. Women are very capable of using their brain and their uterus simultaneously.”
*Some names have been changed