Anyone who has ever returned to work after a few years at home looking after children or caring for a relative will tell you that it’s a difficult business fraught with practical and emotional difficulties. But the opportunities for people, particularly women, to get back into paid work after a break are greater now than they’ve ever been.
It is almost impossible to put a clear figure on how many people are out there thinking about getting back to work, but we know that it’s a very large pool of women and its an important target group because of the demographics that are being faced by companies in the future, older and ageing population, older workers and fewer younger people to fill the gaps in the marketplace etc.
It seems that during the 1980’s and 1990’s women left paid employment in vast numbers. The main reasons for this were the baby boom and also the recession in 1992/1993. However, times have changed and the opportunities for women returning to the workplace are greater than they have ever been.
However, there seems to be a huge spotlight on the issue of women returning to the workplace. What about men I hear you scream!! And rightly so too! The figures are not set in stone, but there are about 100,000 home dads looking after their children while their wives go out to work and many more caring for relatives at home.
Recently, career development organisation A Brave New World Ltd., set up an on-line survey to gather statistics on the barriers affecting women returning to the workplace. What is interesting and encouraging is that men are taking it upon themselves to complete the survey too. The company have now decided to open the discussion to both genders in order to try to compile a truly global view of the gender breakdown on barriers and perceptions around this whole issue.
One male respondent reported that like many women before him he found that being at home changed him and created problems when it came to looking for a job. He reported that his new stay at home role was ‘quite a lonely life’ as it was just him and the kids, the kids for company. He stated that before he took on the main carer role he was very outward and discovered that, rather like his female counterparts, he changed and lost his self-esteem and confidence. It’s funny that we never think of men in this light but the same issues must be true for both genders.
It must be so frustrating to be in a position where having taken a career break you have decided to go back to work, to give something back, and go to great lengths in order to do this and find that the reality of negative reactions from prospective employers is real and out there.
There’s another thing, ‘perception’. This is such a big issue within organisations. We are becoming more aware of how to re integrate women back into the workplace and the barriers and obstacles faced by women in the process of returning to work. What about the perceptions of companies to men who have taken that time out? Some male respondents commented that you get some prospective employers who pat you on the back and say, ‘I don’t know how you did it’, or you get others that think you stayed at home because you didn’t really want to go to work and wasn’t it just an opportunity for you to sit around all day watching children’s tv and pressuring your wife to go out to work and be a kept man!
The reality is that anyone, male or female, who has spent time at home watching children’s tv knows that it’s not much of an incentive to be there.
However, more and more men are staying at home to look after their kids and the team at A Brave New World believe that they face even bigger problems perhaps than women because of the negative perception on the part of potential employers towards men who’ve been at home with kids.
It is important that men and women returning to work develop their self esteem and confidence before stepping back into the workplace. It is also important to re-evaluate where you are now because in actual fact the research that A Brave New World have previously conducted indicates that all the skills developed during that career break will add value to any cv and ultimately securing that job.
Using the skills developed and learnt on raising children or caring for someone will be hugely beneficial to any organisation. There is a huge skill gap out there and men and women have to develop the confidence to apply their home to work skills acquired during their time away from paid employment. There is no doubt that men and women gain from the experience of being a full time carer. You gain time management skills, flexibility in what you do and incredible multi-tasking ability, all those terms we hear so much about now and are vitally important in today’s diverse workplace.
This blog was written by Alice Jones, busy mum to three lively boys (12), (10), and (10) and founder of A Brave New World Ltd., career development experts. You can visit our website on www.abravenewworld.co.uk or email alice@abravenewworld.co.uk.
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Men are still much more able call themselves freelance, on sabbatical or self-employed, to cover care breaks, whereas women still have real problems being regarded as suitable to return to work full-time after starting a family.
Women are much more likely to be offered 16-25 hours per week jobs by the Job Centres than men, or maternity cover temping, and these may be equally as demanding as 37 hours in their complexity and skill level; yet at 40 years old, men who have returned to work at 35 years of age will be regarded as having changed careers, suitable for additional on-the-job training, and promotion, whereas a 40 year old female who has been fitting in ever increasing part time hours around her family responsibilities never seems to conceptually make it back onto the rungs of the career ladder again.
Yes, belonging to a PTA at your child's school, running a parent and toddler group, researching league tables to find a good schhol for your child etc all add to skill levels - whatever sex you are - but somehow men are perceived to have gained extra skills whilst taking on caring, in addition to having previously gained career experience in the past, whereas women still have to fight aginst the "doing what comes naturally" mindset from employers where a major life change such as becoming a mother is anticipated as something women just get on with.
A man with a good degree is still far more likely than a woman with a good degree to be regarded as skilled and employable in their thirties and forties. Times they are a-changing - just very slowly!
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