Why working parents are leaving. It is all over the news, working parents, particularly working mothers struggling to manage their dual responsibilities: a whopping four in 10 working parents have considered leaving their jobs. What is happening that is driving so many parents out of the job market? Why are parents finding it so tough to juggle work and parenting?
Unsurprisingly, childcare cost is one of the main reasons. Childcare in the UK is amongst the most expensive in the world. No wonder working parents are forced to leave their careers when for so many it does not make financial sense to keep on working. When most or all your pay cheque goes towards childcare, is working really worth it? The cost of childcare is hitting working women especially hard. According to a recent Fawcett Society survey, one in five women have considered leaving their job because of it as opposed to only one in 10 fathers.
The cost of childcare becomes even a bigger problem for working parents considering the recent mandate by many employers to return to the office. Not only do the logistics become more complicated for working parents, but their cost-of-living increases. Indeed, according to Pebble, returning to the office is costing parents more than £600 extra per month. At the same time working parents see how the time they have available to spend with their children gets reduced.
That precious hour previously used to help with homework, read, or play is now spent in the commute. Therefore, it is no surprise that a recent survey by Pebble shows that out of 2,000 parents, half of them were planning on giving up their jobs because of employers moving away from remote working. And once again, the return to the office mandate is hitting women harder, which is a shame after remote work brought record numbers of women to the workforce.
The return to the office mandate is one of the reasons why working parents don’t feel supported by their employers. Balancing work and family life feels like a challenge at best and a real struggle at worst. This struggle is even harder for single parents because they have less support, and for parents of children with additional needs, such as neurodiversity or health issues, who have more problems finding adequate childcare and whose schedules may be more unpredictable. The lack of support from employers is particularly salient for new mothers. 25% of new mothers never come back from maternity leave at all or only come back for a few months and then quit as they can’t manage to juggle everything.
Even though research shows that working mothers are affected more by these issues, let’s not forget about fathers. Today, fathers want to be and are more involved in their children’s upbringing than ever before. Indeed, a recent survey commissioned by REC Parenting found that they are feeling the pressure of juggling work and family almost as much as mothers. Therefore, when measures are put in place to support working parents, they should target both mothers and fathers.
The problems that parents face when forced to return to the office or when having to pay for childcare reflect a larger societal change. The way we raise children has fundamentally changed, and as a result, parents have lost their tribe. Parenting was not meant to be done in isolation. Parents were meant to have the support of their extended family, neighbours, and the community. Due to a variety of reasons, such as greater mobility and smaller families, many parents do not have anyone to support them. Our research found that out of 2,000 parents, 37% very often or often feel overwhelmed by juggling work and parenting responsibilities whereas the British Red Cross found that 43% of mothers under 30 feel lonely all the time.
To make things worse, many mothers have fallen into the trap of trying to be a ‘supermum’. Bupa published a survey in 2022 showing that 63% of women are exhausted by trying to be perfect mothers. Half of them said that social media made them feel even more pressure to live up to unrealistic standards. Worryingly, 20% of mothers say the pressure has negatively affected their mental health. This is not only bad for mothers, but also for their children. When mothers struggle, their children are more likely to struggle too.
Childcare costs, lack of flexibility, and the pressure to juggle work and parenting are forcing parents out of the workforce. Let’s be clear: We are failing working parents. And when we fail them, we fail their children too. The time has come for employers to become relevant members of their working parents’ tribe. Allowing working parents to continue to leave the workforce is not only negative for them and their families but it impoverishes the talent pool, the workplace, and society as a whole.
