Making it Work: Balancing Career and Family

Balancing a job and a family has always been a challenge for working parents. During the downturn, however, this has become even more of a juggling act as pay freezes, increased workloads and redundancies pile extra pressure on parents' time and earning capacity.

A common obstacle that parents in the UK face is a lack of flexibility in the workplace. According to a recent CBI study, only 20% of companies in the country have family-friendly policies. The rest, it seems, are focusing on the bottom line instead of the individual needs of their staff.

UK labour law does give certain parents the right to request flexible working, including those with children under the age of six or disabled children under the age of 18. However, employers are not obliged to agree to these requests, but must consider them seriously, reports the BBC.

New maternity and paternity leave laws

In order to provide more support for working parents, the government is introducing new legislation, which will give parents more choice and flexibility as to how they use their leave.

According to Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, mothers will be able to transfer the last six months of their maternity leave to the father, with three months paid.

"This gives families radically more choice and flexibility in how they balance work and care of children, and enables fathers to play a bigger part in bringing up their children," she said.

The scheme is due to start in April 2011. At present, however, statutory maternity and paternity payments are less than the minimum wage, which means a lot of fathers and mothers from low-income households are going back to work sooner than they would like.

Working out of necessity rather than choice

The CBI reports that over 70% of mothers in the UK return to work after taking maternity leave. While it could be said that these working mothers 'have it all', a significant number of them are choosing flexibility over job satisfaction.

In fact, a recent study by WorkingMums.co.uk found that a staggering 88% of mothers who work have opted for roles below their skill level. Around 63% said they were putting their career aspirations on hold and choosing jobs that allow them more flexibility to balance work and family life.

One respondent reported giving up a job as a finance manager after having her third child because she could not afford full-time childcare and her employer allowed no flexibility in her position. She now works for the same company as a part-time administrative assistant.

Others were more fortunate. One said that after taking an 8-year career break to concentrate on being a mum, she found a job in her chosen field that offered flexible hours.

"I have also been approached by a previous employer and have been able to negotiate a 1-day a week equivalent on a consultancy basis," she said.

Family-focused workplaces

As an alternative to flexible working hours, some family-friendly workplaces offer on-site childcare facilities, which allow their employees to follow their careers and still be there for their children.

Vikki Grimes, a training manager at Microsoft, said having her sons at her firm's on-site crèche, which is just 50 yards from her desk, made her life easier.

"They know where you are and if they need you, you can be there in seconds," she explained.

American Express UK is another company with on-site childcare and a family-friendly approach. Around 30% of the company's employees have flexible working arrangements and parents on staff benefit from enhanced pay for maternity, paternity and adoption leave. As a result, the firm enjoys a return-to-work rate of almost 90% (up from 75% in 2007), reports HR Magazine.

Today's childcare options

Around 340,000 parents in the UK currently benefit from tax breaks on childcare vouchers, which equate to a 31% saving on the first £243 spent on childcare costs each month for basic rate taxpayers, or 51% for higher rate ones.

However, the government is planning to put an end to this tax relief scheme by 2015. The reason for ending the programme is to use the money to provide 40% of two-year-olds with 10 hours of free childcare a week on a means-tested basis.

The Press Association reports that more than 22,000 parents are calling on the government to abandon this plan.

According to Simon Moore, managing director of Computershare Voucher Services, the UK's largest provider of vouchers, said the outrage expressed by working parents has been "phenomenal".

"These vouchers are a real benefit to hundreds of thousands of hardworking parents... I am not at all surprised that parents are protesting against this cut," he said.

While certain families are set to benefit from this move, the remaining parents will have to reassess their childcare options.

Nanny-share schemes

While most people believe that hiring a nanny is a privilege reserved for an elite few, a growing number of working parents are defying this assumption by entering into nanny share schemes. These involve two or more families pooling the cost of hiring a nanny instead of sending their children to a nursery or giving up work to care for them.

The nannies either share their hours between the families, or bring all the children together in the same house. This means parents pay less for the same amount of childcare hours and nannies benefit from a higher combined income.

According to the Guardian, agencies that specialise in matching nannies to a pair or group of families have seen a boom in business during the downturn.

Nannies are welcoming the trend, too. Lisa Wilkins, a nanny working in South London, said she prefers sharing her time between two families and added that a wider variety of families could now afford her services.

"More people can have the best type of care for their child," she said.

Fiona Jull, a mother who lives in Wandsworth, opted for a nanny-share arrangement when she returned to work.

"I looked at having a nanny but realised it would cost half my salary, so I decided to share. I found a family - through a website - around the corner. I drop my son off two days a week and he's here two days a week," she said.

Are children of working parents at a disadvantage?

Adding to the pressures of being a working parent is the guilt that one's children are not getting a balanced upbringing.

A recent study conducted by Institute of Child Health, found that five-year-olds whose mothers worked part- or full-time were more likely to consume sweetened drinks between meals, watch more television, use their computers more often, and catch a lift to school instead of walking or riding their bikes when compared with those children who had 'stay-at-home moms'.

Professor Catherine Law, who led the study, told the BBC that fathers were not taken into account as their employment levels had not changed, whereas the numbers of working mothers had increased significantly in recent years.

"Our results do not imply that mothers should not work. Rather they highlight the need for policies and programmes to help support parents," she added.

Experts have called for more research on the subject and numerous working mothers insist it is possible to earn a living, feed one's children healthy food and ensure they exercise - all it requires is a healthy attitude.

Lorraine Candy, Editor-in-Chief of fashion magazine Elle, believes that working parents raise well-balanced children.

"I work in an industry populated with young people - many of them the proud produce of working mums. They are smart, ambitious, intelligent and grounded. They are inquisitive and engaged with the world. They are, above all, super-confident... Many of those I work with cite their parents as role models, especially their working mums," she said.

It seems as if a significant number of mothers and fathers in the UK are managing to earn a living and find innovative ways to provide their children with all the care, attention and guidance they need - and these working parents deserve more support from their peers, employers and government.