Choosing work or family
Should a committed woman have to make a choice between having a child and getting ahead in her career with all the financial and job satisfaction this entails? This is the contemporary conflict many women of child-bearing age face.
A high number of professional women are foregoing children due to an inability to obtain a work/life balance a survey has revealed, with many feeling that taking maternity leave is detrimental to their career prospects.
The Women in the Professions Survey released in Canberra by the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA) shows the remuneration trends and employment status of professional female engineers, scientists, managers and pharmacists nationally. What it shows is a concern.
The report is concerning for policy makers as it showed that many women are being forced to choose between work and having a family.
The lack of flexibility in working conditions, access to part-time hours and paid maternity leave is an on-going barrier for professional women who are either choosing not to have children or leaving their professions. Of the almost 2000 responses a high number of females in professional positions were without children, the survey revealed.
What is worrying is that over half of those surveyed do not have children at all. This is significantly above the level of childlessness reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in the wider population.
The survey also found a considerable difference in the percentage of women without children by professional discipline – more than 60 per cent of IT professionals do not have children, while for pharmacists (who have greater access to part-time work) the figure was considerably lower at 48.4 per cent.
Of the women surveyed, 34 per cent with children had not taken any maternity leave and nearly 60 per cent received no paid maternity leave.
Alarmingly 56.9 per cent said that the taking of maternity leave was detrimental to careers. Research has consistently shown that the workplace for professional women is not improving despite the acute skills shortage in technology. There has been insufficient action by both government and industry to improve women’s pay and working conditions or work-life balance.
What should young families consider when pressured by the desire to have another child?
1.You will always have your family even when the things you have worked for have gone. Most people will say in later life, that their children were the best investment they ever made;
2.We can all live more simply. Having more things does not mean greater happiness;
3.Careers can be cut short by pregnancy, and this is a serious cost to the career conscious woman, and we should honour her for making that choice;
4.The choice to have a child, or to have another child, should be the choice of both the husband and the wife. Sometimes, older children could also be consulted, for the arrival of a child impacts on all in the family.
Whatever the choice, Governments must do more to support the women with children, whether they are at home or at work, and the community and the employer must respect the decision women make.
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C..