Women might feel they’ve made massive strides in the workplace and should be able to juggle a family and all the domestic demands that entails – as well as having a great relationship with their partner, a rewarding social life, and time to themselves… 
Perhaps for a lucky few. But a recent survey reveals a massive 89% of mums have considered working for themselves to get a better work life balance.
Incredibly, 43% of working mothers also said they did over 75% of domestic chores and childcare.
And shockingly around 40% of working mums feel they have also taken a step back in their career since having children. Only 29% felt they had progressed with the rest staying at the same level.
Yet 43% said they believed working for themselves wasn’t an option as they couldn’t afford to.
These were the findings of the study by workingmums.co.uk site, which is about to launch a new Business Zone to give support and advice, including funding advice, to women considering setting up their own business, franchise or seeking self employment.
Although the survey found 28% of working mums felt their children saw them as aspiring role models, 22% felt their kids thought they were stressed out and exhausted.
Unsurprisingly, some 80% of working parents felt children should be educated about work life balance issues to prepare them for the impact of their woking life – with most feeling this should be undertaken at secondary school.
On childcare, almost half used grandparents for this with a quarter admitting they had no back-up care in the case of emergency.
Meanwhile – perhaps because they would welcome their husbands and partners being at home more – 65% felt men were not given a fair hearing over flexible working.
Gillian Nissim, founder of Workingmums.co.uk, said: “The results of this survey show that, although much progress is being made on flexible working for women, there is concern that men are finding it more difficult to negotiate this. This has a knock-on effect on women who, due to the high cost of childcare, may be forced out of work or to work fewer hours than they would like. There is also concern about the lack of new flexible jobs. If the Government extends the right to request flexible working to all workers we hope that it will become the norm and businesses will begin to think of flexible working as the default position when recruiting, thus opening up roles to a more diverse talent pool.”
Workingmums.co.uk is to hold its second London Flexible Jobs Fair at WorkingMums Live London on 27th March.
For more information, contact Mandy Garner on 07789 106435 or email mandy.garner@workingmums.co.uk
Are you a busy working mum? How do you handle your work/life balance – can you have it all? Have you managed to have it all? Do let us know your thoughts below…
