Stereotypically women are the main caregivers for their children which means they take more time out from work to do so. This affects them throughout their life, from annual income to their pensions. Writer Jess Bourne talks to Hayley about her experience of suffering from the gender pay gap
Hayley was earning close to £45,000. But when she had to take time off work, that annual salary instantly disappeared.
But the reason she left work wasn’t for something awful, it wasn’t because she took ill. It was because she was about to have a baby.
This career break didn’t just harm her while she was off, it has hindered her years later. Hayley has struggled getting back on the career ladder, struggled to build up her savings and struggled trying to balance her work and family.
Despite millions of women suffering from this exact experience, there’s still a common misconception that the gender pay gap is how women are paid less than men on an hourly basis. However, this is not the case and is actually illegal. The gender pay gap lies in the length of career break that a woman takes, typically at the midlife stage, which massively stunts their career growth.
Having children results in women deciding to take on part-time roles or leave their job for the foreseeable future which affects them for the rest of their lives.
Hayley (not her real name to protect her identity) is just one of the thousands of women who have suffered and still are suffering from the gender pay gap.
“We don’t have savings for when we are old, we don’t have investments of any kind and when we did have savings, we’ve used them up from when I wasn’t working,” says Hayley.
Hayley is an industrial engineer who worked in the automotive industry in Mexico and later came to the UK to complete her master’s degree. She gained the degree in science and engineering in 2014 and also met her now husband.
After all the hard work, she was earning nearly £45,000, but when her husband was offered a job in the US, they moved to the States. At the start, she was unable to work for four years, in which time they had their first daughter, but after that, Hayley found a job in manufacturing.
“At the time you don’t really think about it, but now that I’m older, I think there’s been so many years that I haven’t put money into my pension and there was no money coming into our family,” Hayley explains.
In April 2020, Hayley and her husband travelled back to the UK, with their daughter, and again, Hayley was staying home to look after her.
This was the second time Hayley took an extended period of time off work. But in August 2021, she eventually managed to secure a job at a charity, but took a pay cut and started working part-time.
“The reason to work part-time is to care for my daughter because my husband works full-time and he’s the main earner of the household.
“So, I was in charge of a lot of the caring, picking my daughter up from school and taking her where she needed to go.”
Hayley was now earning 40 per cent less than her husband. She did this for about two years, all while being the main caregiver for her daughter. She then fell pregnant with her second daughter and decided not to return to work after her maternity leave.
But in 2024, Hayley started looking for a job and struggled to do so.
“It’s the first time that it’s been really hard for me to find a job considering I’ve had to find jobs in different countries and different continents.
“Obviously I’m older now than before and the economy is not doing great, and I know I can do a bigger job with more responsibility, but I don’t want to because I want the flexibility to be able to care for my daughter,” explains Hayley.
“It’s a decision that a lot of women make at certain points in life, and I am an older mum so maybe when you’re younger it might not affect them that much. But I don’t want to work until I’m 70 to make up for it.”
Like many other women, Hayley found it hard to get back into work and started to apply for entry level jobs, which were below the qualifications she held.
Hayley got a job and started working there at the beginning of March, this year, but is still earning less than she was in 2014.
“It is demoralising. Some people could say it’s my fault because I didn’t look for a job in engineering but I’m just not at a point in my life when I can put a lot of time into work,” says Hayley.
Despite Hayley not wanting to go back into a responsibility-heavy role, she understands that this is something she can do when her children are grown up.
“I have done many different things, and I believe you learn from everything. I am not bothered about ranks or titles in companies. Obviously, I would love to earn more money, but I also know that all the experience I have is transferable,” says Hayley.
“There has to be better maternity and paternity leave policies for both parents to take time off and not be penalised for it,” Hayley explains.
As women are the main caregivers for children, it means they struggle to get back into work after.
It also comes down to the difference in maternity and paternity leave. In the UK – women are legally allowed 52 weeks off to care for their children and recover from birth, however, men are only entitled to two weeks off.
“Women are forced to be the ones that take that step back out of the work force and take that pay cut,” explains Lara Kennedy, Marketing Associate at Ivee, a company that helps women return to the workforce.
“Until men are taking time out to help with caregiving, women are just going to keep getting the brunt of it, and that will never change because someone’s got to take care of the children.”
It’s also down to the cost of childcare. The UK has the third highest childcare costs which means women have to pick between going to work or looking after their children.
“After maternity leave and after taking a career break, women have different situations, different priorities, different motivations,” Lara explains.
“Training needs to be implemented to help women return to work. If not, the gap continues to grow and everything becomes more intimidating, tech is outdated, their skills are outdated. It just becomes more and more daunting.
“Women are not on the same track of progression they once were. While men just keep going up, we just plateau,” says Lara.