Maria Shahid
Freelance  journalist

A report published last week by the Resolution Foundation thinktank looking at the choices women in the UK face when opting for part-time work, is likely to resonate with women everywhere.

It serves as a stark reminder of the struggles that women face in the workplace after motherhood.

The report found that in low to middle income (LMI) households more than a third of women did not feel that part-time work was a choice.

More shocking perhaps is what the report calls the ‘part-time penalty’: nearly 50 per cent of the same group had been forced to take a lower skilled job because they wanted to work part time. Employers, it seems, are simply not willing to appoint or promote, part-timers to a senior level.

One respondent said that: ‘As a part-time employee, I had to take a lower grade job as it was felt that I couldn’t have a supervisor role if I was part-time…I have been overlooked for promotion because I didn’t want to increase my hours.’

So it’s clear that one of the biggest challenges facing women in the job market is finding a job that matches their skills, a point that I have often heard in conversation with mothers in my own peer group.  Far too many at a senior level complain that their employer would not even consider allowing them to work for less than four days a week.

More than half of those surveyed by the Foundation Resolution in the LMI group had A Levels or a degree. A wake-up call perhaps to those women who are currently at university or college (and very likely outperforming their male counterparts) of what lies ahead once they graduate, find a well-paid job and then decide to have children.

The report identifies the heavy cost of childcare as one of the primary reasons that more women in the UK do not go back to work. In its 2011 report, the Daycare Trust charity stated that ‘the average yearly expenditure for 25 hours nursery care per week for a child under two is £5,028 in England, £5,178 in Scotland and ££4,723 in Wales’.

And I know just what they mean. My own childcare costs (I live in an affluent suburb of London) are on average around £600 to £700 a month. If I went back to work full time, I would have to pay about £1800 a month in childcare costs alone.

One respondent to the survey stated that ‘by working part-time I am saving on childcare, so I can afford to take lower paid jobs. With two children my childcare costs would be £22,000 a year, so I would need a job at £35,000 a year to make any money’.

For many women the choice remains between earning more money and spending valuable time with their children. And most would prefer the company of their children – ‘I’d rather have less disposable income and more time with my family,’ said one respondent.

Linked up with the issue of a lack of part time work is a lack of flexibility for working parents. Bosses who understand the need to leave work to tend to a sick child remain a rarity.

One obvious solution would be greater help with childcare costs and the UK certainly lags behind its European counterparts when it comes to assistance from the government.

An OECD report published in 2010 found that UK households spend the biggest proportion of their income (around 33 per cent) on childcare, much higher than any other country surveyed.

Although children in the UK are now entitled to 15 hours of pre-school education from the age of three, it seems paltry when compared to the provision in other European countries such as Sweden where children can go from a much younger age. And it certainly is not enough to get women back into the workplace.

Not surprising, then, that the Daycare Trust recommended that ‘the Government should reverse the decision to reduce the proportion of childcare costs covered by the childcare element of Working Tax Credit from 80 to 70 per cent in April 2011’; and that ‘Government should increase the level of subsidy available to childcare providers’.

Whilst it’s unlikely that this government will subsidise childcare further in the current economic climate, their current attitude is clearly very short-termist, given the potential goldmine that skilled women represent to the UK economy.