Overcoming the 'motherhood penalty': improving women's access to work in the UK

Significant barriers still exist towards women's equal participation in the labour market; whether through discrimination, caring roles, or the unequal weight of domestic responsibilities.

Access to affordable childcare and flexible working arrangements have long been cited as the main barrier towards women's equal inclusion in the workplace.

Budget announcements in 2023 promised the roll out of increased 'free' childcare for all working families, beginning in April 2024, but research and campaign findings are already indicating this may be a costly mistake that does not go any way to uncovering the structural biases that actually prevent women from participating in the labour market.

Utilising ethnographic practices and collaborating with a peer-support network of mothers in Brighton, this research project will seek to ask how the labour market can change to address the systemic and social barriers to female inclusion in the work place.

It will explore the impact that more comprehensive initiatives such as flexible working policies, a shorter working week, and a focus on productivity rather than presenteeism, might have on supporting women to work.

It will also seek to further our understanding of how factors such as class, socio-economic status and single motherhood, influence women's experience of the motherhood penalty, and their decision/ability to access work.