Why SHOULD childless women like us do longer hours to cover for working mothers?

Single women bear the brunt of our 'long hours' culture

But while the challenges faced by working mothers are acknowledged...

The extra burden endured by childless females is going unchecked



When Zoe Clarke-Powell's 75-year-old father, who suffers from dementia, had to move into a care home, she asked for two days' holiday from her job as a marketing manager in a London firm to help him settle in.



Her mother had died six years ago, and Zoe was an only child, so she needed to travel to the Midlands to give her dad the practical and emotional support he needed for this traumatic life transition.



In view of the sensitive nature of her request, she expected sympathy and understanding from her manager. But she was met with the opposite.



Unfair: Zoe Clarke-Powell, who is childless and single, feels she is the victim of an unspoken inequality between women with children and those without

'They asked me if it had to be that specific week,' says Zoe, 37. 'Of course it did. It had taken forever to get the arrangements in place, and I was desperate to be there for Dad when he needed me.



'After some wrangling, I was finally granted the days, but so begrudgingly that it made things even more upsetting than they were already.



'Yet I know that if my request had been to take care of a child, it would never have been questioned.'

Zoe, however, is childless and single, and she feels the victim of an unspoken inequality that lurks beneath the surface of many industries.



Although she works long hours - usually much longer than her female colleagues with children - this year, she found herself at the bottom of the pile when it came to taking a summer holiday, with the working mums getting first dibs.



When her co-workers' children are ill, they are free to work from home, yet this option is never available to her. 'I have asked but been told a firm “no”, with the excuse, “You're an employee not a consultant,”' she says.



'I'd love to meet somebody and have children myself one day, but increasingly I wonder how I'll ever do that when I'm always at work. I'm missing out on life.



Cutting out inequality: Jane Robinson, outside of her business Cutting Technologies. To avoid discriminating against her employees, Jane, who does not have children, allows flexible working hours

'If someone is needed to stay late, it's always me they come to first - it's assumed I don't have anything better to do. It makes me feel I'm not important. I often feel resentment towards them, and I'm sure it shows in my behaviour.



'None of the things I want to do with my time - whether for myself or for my father - are given the same weight as children's sports days or parents' evenings. It feels like discrimination.'



Zoe isn't alone in this view - nor is it unjustified, however controversial it sounds. Her experience is indicative of an emerging pattern, in which single women are penalised with longer working hours and less flexibility than their female colleagues with children.



Recent research found that single women bear the brunt of our 'long hours' culture, with 40 per cent regularly putting in unpaid overtime, compared with 26 per cent of single men the same age, and 17 per cent of working mothers.



The flip side is that women without children earn, on average, 14 per cent more than those juggling motherhood with their careers, a situation dubbed the 'motherhood penalty' by sociologists.



But employment experts argue that while the challenges faced by working mothers are being acknowledged, the extra burden being placed on childless women is going unchecked.





'Zoe's experience is indicative of an emerging pattern, in which single women are penalised with longer working hours and less flexibility than their female colleagues with children.'

HR and employment-law consultant Tara Daynes says: 'While it's incredibly important that we have many provisions to ensure working mothers don't end up being excluded from the workforce, the danger is that companies focus so much on their “family friendly” policies, they end up forgetting about the women who don't have children - all of whom have important obligations, too. #

'Managers are often terrified of someone throwing a claim at them, so they tend to tread very carefully around working mothers. The trouble is, this creates a double standard.

'Women are also more willing to pick up more slack than men, and managers go to them with extra work because they're less likely to complain.'



But the perspective that a 'work-life balance' should apply only to women with children infuriates Jody Day, 48.



After working as an interior designer for 15 years, Jody, who doesn't have children, set up a network in 2011 called Gateway Women, which aims to support, inspire and empower childless women.



She runs it from her home in London, and says discrimination in the workplace is a common issue many women face. 'Every childless woman I know has experienced some sort of tension in the workplace with working mothers,' she says.



'It's impossible to argue that your life outside work is as important as the needs of a small child, and complaining about it seems “unsisterly”.'



Single minded: Jody Day set up Gateway Women, which aims to support, inspire, and empower childless women

Jody believes there is a 'cult of motherhood' in the UK, which means mums' out-of-office lives are seen to have greater significance than childless women's.



'We're obsessed with the status of motherhood in this country, and that has spilled over into the workplace,' she says.



'There's an unbelievable permissiveness towards mothers at work. If they're bombarding their colleagues with child-related talk all day, it's deemed acceptable, but if women without children talk about their lives in the same way, we're seen as self-absorbed.'



Of course, at the start of their careers, many women are more than happy to pitch in for their colleagues with children, assuming they themselves will be in that position one day. But if that doesn't turn out to be the case, resentment can build up.



Indeed, expecting the childfree to pick up the slack is not just an entrenched part of workplace culture, but tacitly supported by the law.



While British employment legislation states that women with children must be able to ask for flexible working arrangements and have their request considered seriously, there is no entitlement for flexibility for anybody else.



And while working mothers are - rightly - granted a period of paid maternity leave after the birth of a child, requests by childless women for sabbaticals to fulfil personal ambitions tend to be given short shrift.



When Jane Robinson, 41, set up her manufacturing company, Cutting Technologies, in Barnsley, South Yorkshire in 2003, this inequality was at the forefront of her mind.



As a single, childfree woman who had worked in male-dominated engineering companies for a decade, she often felt she was doing more than her fair share of work. 'I was always the one who was asked to work late,' says Jane.



'Children seem to be the trump card, which aces everything else. None of the things I might want to do could possibly be as important as being a parent.'



When she started her own business, she made it a company policy to allow every one of her 32 members of staff the right to ask for flexible working, whatever their circumstances.



'I believe we all need a bit of flexibility to help us live fulfilled lives,' she says.



'There's no guarantee we'll be able to grant every request, but we work hard to judge every case on its own merits.





'Children seem to be the trump card, which aces everything else. None of the things I might want to do could possibly be as important as being a parent.'



'One woman, who has no children and works in our sales team, has been able to leave early or come in late when she has needed to. I know she wouldn't ask if it wasn't important to her.'



Both Tara and Jody argue that treating employees equally, regardless of their marital or parental status, is not only ethical, but better for business.



Tara says: 'Extending flexibility to everybody in the organisation isn't just a goodwill gesture. It will get the best out of staff and maintain loyalty without affecting productivity. I'm finding more companies here are following some American firms, and starting to offer all workers more leeway.'



Google, for example, has a policy that allows employees to work from home, and encourages them to use one day a week to explore other projects.



But since this is not the norm, what is the answer, besides silently seething and allowing resentments to escalate?



Tara advises non-mothers who feel unfairly burdened to speak up. Zoe agrees. 'As I get older, I am trying to be more forceful about my needs,' she says. 'If I have theatre tickets or a dinner date, I'll make it clear I have to leave the office at a certain time.



'Sometimes I'm told I'm needed and have no choice, but sometimes I've been able to do it. It stops me feeling taken advantage of.'



Jane says that it shouldn't be assumed a woman without a child has nothing of significance in her life beyond work. Everyone needs time away from their desks to do the things that give their life meaning,' she says.

