Children a fear factor for women who want to work

AN ALARMING one in three women believe having children will harm their career, particularly Dublin-based working mums.

Part-time working mothers are most convinced with four in 10 agreeing starting a family will hamper career prospects. Furthermore, one in five women nationally said they had been asked questions about family plans and childcare arrangements in performance review meetings.

More than half of women in the Capital agree starting a family will hamper their career prospects. Nationally, 34% of women subscribe to this view, with the notable exception of working mums in Munster where four in 10 strongly disagree that having children is an obstacle to progression in the workplace.

In fact, only one in 10 working mothers in the Munster region strongly agreed that having a family was an impediment to career enhancement, compared to one in three in Dublin.

The strong difference in opinion about the effects of children on career are highlighted in an Irish Examiner/Lansdowne Market Research which surveyed 1,081 parents. Parents were asked if they felt having children had reduced their chances of promotion. Their answers were categorised under “agree strongly”, “agree”, “neither agree/disagree”, “disagree slightly” and “disagree strongly”.

The same categories were applied to a question on whether childcare had prevented couples from having more children.

Again, strong differences between the regions emerged. In Dublin, four in 10 strongly agreed that childcare costs are limiting family size, compared to 27% of households nationally where one parent works full-time and the other part-time. The figure dropped to just 13% in Munster.

A higher percentage of the labour force lives and works in Dublin, so this may go some way towards explaining the discrepancies between the regions.

However, it is also likely to be linked to the fact that double the number of households in Munster, where there is often less geographical separation between families, can rely on family members to provide childcare.

It comes as no surprise then that 27% of Dublin households surveyed strongly agreed with a one percent hike in the standard rate of income tax to go towards the cost of childcare. Only 13% in the Capital strongly disagreed. This was in sharp contrast to Munster where the reverse was the case. Here, just 12% of households strongly agreed with a one percent tax hike and 27% strongly disagreed.