An IPPR report published this week found that mothers are the breadwinners for one in three families with dependent children in the United Kingdom today. The proportion of mothers earning half or more of the family income has increased considerably in the last two decades, from 23 per cent in 1996 to 33 per cent in 2013 – even if it has been static in recent years.
What does this tell us about working mothers today? At first glance, perhaps progress towards greater equality, a redistribution of work and care within couples, a reduction even in the motherhood pay penalty. While younger women now earn the same if not more than their male counterparts, the arrival of children has long appeared to have a depressive effect on older women’s wages.
But inevitably the story is not quite so straightforward. Half of the 2m maternal breadwinners are the heads of lone parent families, and by going out to work as so many do, they are by definition breadwinners – even if their earnings are low. The most recent increase in the breadwinning rate has been seen in working couple households, but even here just one in five mothers takes home the same or more pay than her partner. Overall, maternal breadwinning is most likely in low and middle income families, and in some areas, the report notes, is probably related to the fall in employment and wages of men following the recession rather than an increase in women’s pay.
The IPPR compared rates of maternal breadwinning here with Germany – where they are lower, at 27 per cent. Many of the policies we strive and struggle to deliver here are already in place, introduced in response to the country’s low birth rate. Childcare is now much more affordable – even if coverage can be variable, there are generous paid parental leave schemes for both mothers and fathers, and a guaranteed programme of flexible work for those who want to reduce their working hours for several years to care, without having to move in to a less suitable – and probably lower-skilled job.
As in the UK, lone parents account for half of breadwinners in Germany, and the number of maternal breadwinners within couples has remained largely unchanged. In the West of the country, the majority (60 per cent) of mothers in working couples earn less than 30 per cent of the household income. The reason for this is perhaps reflected in research commissioned by the Ministry for the Family and published earlier this year, which found that 60 per cent of those in the West believed that after having children, a woman should reduce her employed hours to care. The Lutheran-era adage of the Rabenmuetter, the raven mother after the bird who leaves her children to fend for themselves – is not on its last legs yet.
But politics should not tell people how to live their lives – rather policies should support their choices. In Britain today, dual income families are the norm: a reflection of the fact that mothers want the fulfillment of paid employment and see work as a continuing and important part of their identity after having children, but also an economic necessity as family living costs demand the contribution of two earners. Both can be true at once.
Rates of maternal breadwinning are interesting – but they offer relatively little insight into mothers’ lives, circumstances, or the choices on offer to them. There is no golden rate of maternal breadwinning to which we should aspire. We should keep our noses out of personal decisions around childbearing, whether to work when there are children at home, how much to work if so. But it is our business to build the frameworks to make those choices possible, and to ensure that a baby is no barrier to those who want and need to win some bread.
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Clare Murphy is director of external affairs at bpas
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