Does your partner work flexibly?

Around half of working mums' partners would like to work flexibly, but can't, according to a Workingmums.co.uk poll.

The poll found 42% of partners can't work flexibly and 6% have asked and been refused. Twenty per cent of partners do work flexibly, while 14% don't want to. Seventeen per cent don't have partners.

The poll suggests that many men are having difficulty negotiating flexibility, don't even ask because either it does not fit the kind of job they do or they feel they would not be granted it or believe that working flexibly would damage their earning power. 

Several people who took part in the poll said their partners worked very long hours which left them with very little flexibility to work except in school hours. One said: “My partner works full time whilst I stay home. He works ridiculous hours and has tried to ask for a more flexible rota, but last time he asked, they messed up his hours so he worked 14 instead of his usual 40+ which doesn't help financially.”

Another said: “I have been looking for part time/flexible/freelance work for seven months to fit in with picking kids up from school. Even though they are in clubs till 5.30 two days and 4 another, no joy. My husband works very long hours, travels a fair bit and can't help out.”

The poll comes just after publication of journalist Gaby Hinsliff's new book Half a Wife which argues for men and women to share work and childcare more equally. She wrote in a recent Guardian article: "Men are now more likely than women to say they want shorter hours, and less satisfied than women with their current working arrangements, according to a YouGov poll. Of course, some of those mothers probably lose out professionally, since both the pay gap and the dearth of senior women in corporate life suggest fathers are closer than mothers to having the working lives they want. Neither sex has a monopoly on victimhood. But when mothers miss out on intellectual satisfaction and financial security at work, while fathers miss out on intimacy and closeness with their children by spending so much time in the office, neither sex is really having it all, either. And both sexes are increasingly restless, even angry, about that." 

The Government has proposed that all workers be allowed to request the right to work flexibly and has introduced legislation to allow partners to share maternity leave so that they can be more involved in childcare. So far, however, there has been little take-up of shared parenting, mainly, say employers, because families face losing out financially if they do since men only get paid at statutory maternity pay rate.