More or less equal?
The pandemic ignited a debate about work—how and where it’s done and by whom. It also kindled longer running battles over gender inequality.
Let’s start by recognising that gender inequality is, shamefully, much bigger than work. According to the UN, although women’s educational attainment is 95% of men’s, and health and survival is 96%, economic participation is only 58% and political empowerment and appointment of decision makers is as low as 22%.
While this is broad, unadjusted data, it is nevertheless revealing. As is the difference in pay for women. Since 2017, UK companies have been required by law to publish data about gender pay gaps (although that has been on hold since the start of the pandemic, in March 2020). The trend in recent years had been for positive improvement, but the gap has widened slightly since the pandemic, to 15.4%. Looking at different ages, the gaps differ markedly. For those aged under 40 the gaps are around 3% but nearer 12% for the over-40s. This is clearly not just about pay, it is about the differences in opportunities open to women and men, and these seem baked into the way we live and work.
Even in the liberal-minded profession of architecture, feelings run deep; behind its glorious facades, conflicts and resentments likely linger, not least over promotions. A recent survey (March 2022) from Dezeen indicates that women are still not being appointed to leadership roles in the profession. More than half of the top 100 practices have no women on their boards. As many as 45 per cent have not added any female leaders in the last five years, and nearly a fifth still have no women in their second tier of management.
This may be a symptom of a wider problem. A work culture that assumes long hours, late nights and complete focus on projects is more likely to put women in a position of having to choose between family and work or having one or both suffer. That is the story in architecture, advertising, media and many professional services.
Many factors lead to gender pay gaps but the ‘parenthood penalty’ looms large in the debate, becoming a barrier to women’s progression particularly to senior roles. One way to mitigate the effect is through flexible working. Without it, women’s opportunities are diminished when they become parents.
It’s about childcare and about working culture and priorities, but mostly about childcare.
Increasingly vocal groups are questioning the issue and a host of related issues around the idea of work and equality of opportunity as well as pay. Campaigner and broadcaster Anna Whitehouse maintains a provocatively named blog, ‘Mother Pukka’, as a focus for debate about equality and balancing life, work and relationships. Her campaign for flexible working has broadened popular debate about the issue. Central to the argument are questions over its implementation and of equality of opportunity and how both relate to notions about work and life today. Not unreasonably, Whitehouse is all for equality on a domestic level as much as in the office; to achieve that, she believes, requires a mind-reset. “The burden of childcare is still firmly strapped to female shoulders,” she observes, “but that’s not to say that there are these hapless dads who don’t want to step up to the challenge.” Whitehouse thinks flexible working is not a question that is to be settled by employers, but that families need to discuss how they divide up household chores and childcare, and for more men to push for flexible working in order to create a better balance at home.
Ironically, giving men the benefit of flexibility may in fact aid women’s progression in the workplace.
Childcare has always been expensive but post pandemic there has been a shortage of places due to closures and staff shortages. Inflation hasn’t helped. Nicola Phillips, landscape architect and young mother of two, was placed on furlough when the pandemic hit. Having been on furlough for six months post maternity leave it gave Nicola time to reassess her career and the direction it was going. Nicola was provided the opportunity of working on a new build house and starting her own business working from home, being flexible around her young family.
It seems that business needs a mindset change too. Flexibility in the workplace is uneven across different industries. Public sector is leading the way, construction laggardly. A report sponsored by Sir Robert McAlpine drew attention to the issue, highlighting its value to the economy. The report, Flexonomics: The economic and fiscal logic of flexible working, also recognises that there is more to flexibility than homeworking; it encompasses work patterns, workload, workplace, and life events (such as career breaks or parental leave).
And there is growing pressure elsewhere. Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), recently added her voice to the argument for change: “It is extremely important that organisations are not complacent,” she said, “They need training on judging people and promotions by productivity not presenteeism.”
Likewise, Andrew Bazeley, policy and public affairs manager at the Fawcett Society, a charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights at work, at home and in public life, declares that, “flexible working is here to stay. There are people who will prioritise it in job applications, so in a tight labour market employers will realise they have to offer it, especially if they don’t want to widen the gender pay gap.”
Anecdotally, Locri’s evidence seems to bear out that assertion. “More flexibly-minded practices are doing a better job of attracting and keeping good people,” says Carl Thomas, “particularly since European workers have left the UK following Brexit”.
Taken together, these views suggest that we may be in an era of change and growing realisation that work and life and careers in the future will bear decreasing resemblance to those of the past century. For Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis, authors of the Squiggly Career, life is no longer about career ladders and jobs for life but a fluid experience as more and more of us find ourselves in an unpredictable or meandering career path. And that’s not a bad thing. “Squiggly careers are personal and full of possibilities”, says Ellis. “Everyone’s squiggle is unique to them, and we need to decide for ourselves what a successful career means to us“
Hear, hear.
