Mensch resignation shows difficulty for mothers in nurturing careers

THE debate about whether women can ‘have it all’ has been prompted, again, by the surprise resignation of glamorous Tory MP Louise Mensch after two years in parliament.

Citing her inability to balance work and home, the mother-of-three tweeted on Monday that she was “devastated by the necessary decision” but it was “impossible to balance the needs of [her] family” with politics.

With a profile that most politicians would kill for, and rumours about a promotion to junior minister in David Cameron’s forthcoming cabinet reshuffle, Mensch’s resignation has left her Conservative colleagues in Westminster reeling.

It is also opposed to the optimistic, or naive, comments Mensch made before her election: “Of course, women can have it all, if they want it all, I won’t hear any defeatist talk”.

While Mensch, who is moving to New York to join her millionaire husband, is not representative of women generally, the problems that overcame her are worthy of debate.

In Ireland, forthcoming gender-quota legislation may not prove the panacea for women’s participation in politics that the Government hopes, unless working practices for TDs become more family friendly.

Former Fine Gael TD, Olwyn Enright, made comments similar to Mensch’s when she opted not to contest the last general election. She took a back seat to the career of her husband, Donegal North East TD, Joe McHugh.

“My personal circumstances have changed greatly since I was first elected [in 2002] and, in the longer term, with a young family, I will not be in the position to give the enormous commitment the position requires, and that my constituents deserve.

“What’s involved in being a rural TD and having two children — I just don’t see them as being compatible in the long term,” she said.

Gender quotas, in isolation, will not be a silver bullet in solving the chronic underrepresentation of women in politics. Ms Enright was elected twice without quotas and enjoyed a much higher profile than her husband, but found that political and family life were incompatible.

The Stockholm-based Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) has said that female politicians worldwide confront a “masculine model” of politics and nowhere is this more evident than in Ireland, where TDs are expected to be available to their constituents, to answer any kind of inane query, 24-7.

Problems also exist with the times that the Dáil sits — starting in the afternoon and often going on late into the night, an anachronistic practice that makes no allowance for modern family life, whereby both partners work.

Despite the huge advances made by women since the start of the feminist movement, an inconvenient truth remains — women are children’s primary caregivers and a career in politics will remain unattractive for many women unless our parish-pump political system undergoes a mammoth transformation.

The cost of childcare in Ireland, revealed in a recent OECD study to be 45% of parents’ net income, will also have to be addressed.

For many couples, even well-paid politicians, it does not make economic sense for women to work when their salary is swallowed up by exorbitant child-care costs.

Figures showing the changes in labour-force participation when women have children are instructive regarding the scale of the problem.

According to the CSO, “[rates] varied from 85.7% for women with a husband/partner and no children, to 51.5% for women whose youngest child was aged between four and five years of age, a difference of 34.2 percentage points.”

Compare these figures to participation rates recorded in Scandinavian countries, around 80%, even after women have children — a figure related to the universally available and massively subsidised child-care afforded to parents in Nordic countries.

While struggling parents in Ireland can expect to pay in excess of €1,000 a month for childcare, the maximum rate in Sweden is 1,260SEK (around €150) a month for full-time care for one’s first child. Parents pay even less for their second and third child — 0.25% of the family’s income.

In addition, the Swedish government will pay 80% of a parent’s salary, up to a cap of $65,000, for 13 months after the birth of a child and fathers are encouraged to take at least two months of leave.

The substantially higher labour participation rate of mothers in Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries, suggests that when women are given the choice to work after having children, by virtue of the provision of affordable child-care, a large majority will rather than remain at home.

This was the case with Kristin Skogen Lund, the president of the telecommunications giant, Telenor.

Skogen Lund has credited Norway’s generous parental leave and public crèche system with her success in balancing her high-powered job with her role as a mother to two sets of twins.

“This whole [office] is empty at 5 o’clock. If I saw someone at the office working after 5pm night after night, I would worry that they had personal problems at home.

“Here, working late has no value. It is irrelevant,” she said, a revelation that will seem alien to many in the rat race in Ireland, who are expected to toil at their desks long into the evening.

NORDIC countries offer better childcare options to parents but, in addition, corporate culture and work practices are also more family-orientated than the culture of excessive over-time that is more pervasive here.

A UK survey conducted by their department of trade and industry, a number of years ago, underscored the extent of the problem.

The survey showed one in six employees worked more than 60 hours a week, while 28% of workers said long hours were essential to success.

Of those who worked excessive hours, most did not get direct financial reward for staying late, with just one-third getting extra pay or time in lieu. Slaving in the office is simply expected.

Having children is not an impediment to a man’s career, so there’s no reason, other than outmoded gender stereotypes, why women’s careers should be flushed down the toilet because they give birth.

One of the biggest assets this country has, especially as it attempts to drag itself out of recession, is the human capital of the tens of thousands of smart, capable, highly educated and motivated young women being wasted because, for many of them, it simply doesn’t pay to work.

Changes to child-care options and work practices are necessary, not so women can have it all but that they merely be given a fair shot at pursuing a career of their choice — be that in politics, in business, or in the home.