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Lack of men in childcare driving gender pay gap says UK fatherhood charity

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Men and boys are being actively excluded from careers in the UK childcare sector and this discrimination against men is contributing to the “gender pay gap”, according to a leading fatherhood charity.

In a briefing paper to the Government, the Fatherhood Institute argues that “women in the UK are still substantially disadvantaged in relation to men” and that “occupational segregation” is a “substantial driver” of the gender inequalities that women experience.

With the childcare sector still overwhelmingly staffed by women, the pro-feminist, fatherhood think tank argues that professionals providing careers advice should be required to “examine their own prejudices……and promote the interests of boys and men in pursuing childcare and caring work” in order to improve “gender balance” in the sector.

Jobs for the girls 

According to the Fatherhood Institute, childcare is still largely seen as a “job for the girls” and this causes women to “internalise the notion that caring is something women ‘do better’ or, even, that such caring comes ‘more naturally’ to women”.

“When professional childcare is defined as ‘women’s work’, women’s identities as carers-for-children are reinforced in the private sphere, both boys and girls see caring as a role for women,” says the charity’s briefing paper.

“All this has direct impact on women’s earnings and on national productivity, as the majority of mothers pursue the ‘mummy track’ of relatively low-paid part-time work. This, above all, drives the gender pay gap.”

Men are scared of what people think

An estimated 98% of childcare workers in the UK are women and recent research by the London Early Years Foundation revealed that 50% of male childcare workers are worried about what others might think of them. They fear facing peer pressure; negativity from parents about issues like nappy changing and the risk of false allegations of child abuse, says the charity.

On the upside, 98% of female nursery workers want male colleagues and 77% of the public are in favour of men becoming early years workers. Research also suggests that a significant minority of 14-15 year old boys are open to childcare work with one in four saying a career in caring “sounds interesting” and one in eight saying they are interested in working with children.

The government must take action

According to the Fatherhood Institute, the Government needs to take a strategic approach to increasing the number and proportion of men and boys who undertake care work. The actions it recommends include recognising that boys and men are actively and passively discouraged from pursuing careers in childcare; making a positive case for how young children benefit from more men looking after them professionally and campaigning to support both men and boys and women and girls to work in non-traditional sectors.

The charity proposes an “Inspiring Men” campaign to introduce male volunteers into schools to talk about being an involved father; working in non-traditional job roles and balancing work with childcare and caring.

The benefit to women, says the institute, is that getting more men into childcare will help address other areas of gender inequality which it says include: “women’s over-representation in low and unpaid work in both public and the private spheres; inequalities in remuneration for equal work or work of equal value; the gender pay gap more widely; and under-representation of women in senior management, local government, national government and on Boards.”

—Photo credit: Flickr/John Benson

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Unpaid care work: not just a job for the girls after all

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Photo courtesy: Cristian Stefanescu

A few weeks ago I got chatting to an old Irish fella in a pub. He was a tough-looking bloke, a career drinker, with a nose like a soggy walnut. He looked to be in his 70s, but he was probably younger.

He told me that he’d come over from Ireland as a young man and had been a labourer ever since, mainly laying pavement slabs for the council. There’s good money in it, he said.

He explained that you’d get paid by the yard – not the hours – and the trick was in setting out your work. You didn’t lift the slabs, you walked them. You’d make sure the lorry dropped off piles along the road, that way you’d have a goal to work towards and you wouldn’t have to keep going back on yourself and break your back carrying them.

I’m not telling you this because of some romanticised bullshit about physical labour, nice old fellas in pubs, or how the Irish are salt of the earth, to be sure.  I’m telling you this because of what he said next and how it tells a bigger story about our wrong-headed assumptions of men. You see, this tough old Irish navvy was in fact an unpaid domestic carer for his wife.

‘Now it’s my turn’

He was in the pub because he was on the way back from his daily visit to see her in hospital. She had dementia and he’d been caring for her at home, but she’d had a crisis and needed to be taken in.

He explained to me how he’d cleaned her each day, how he knew when she needed to go to the toilet, or wanted some food. He told me of his frustration at not being allowed to bring her home. He was angry that he was surrounded by professionals who thought they knew best, but he knew didn’t care as much about her as he did.

But what I remember most of all, is him telling me in his cracked, smoker’s Irish accent, with quiet resolve and a total absence of self-pity:

“Ah, she’s always been lovely to me. She’s not the prettiest girl in the world, but she was lovely to me. Now it’s my turn. That’s just the way it is.”

By Dan Bell

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*****

This week the Men’s Health Forum published research showing that contrary to the popular stereotype of caring being solely a female role, more than four in ten (42%) of unpaid carers in the UK are male, amounting to some 2.5m male carers in the UK.

Martin Tod, chief executive of the Men’s Health Forum, said male carers: “Face real extra health and work challenges that aren’t always properly addressed. Employers need to recognise that men can be carers too – and health and social care services needs to do more to address the physical and mental health needs of male carers – especially the hidden carers who may not be known to the system. Both employers and health services need to do more to provide the tailored support that male carers need.”

The report, which surveyed more than 600 male carers found that:

  • More than one in four male carers in employment would not describe or acknowledge themselves as a carer to others, meaning they may not get the support they need at work
  • Over half of the male carers (53%) surveyed felt that the needs of male carers were different to those of female carers, many citing that men find it harder to ask for help and support and that balancing work and caring is challenging, particularly if they are the main earner.

The report ‘Husband, Partner, Dad, Son, Carer?’ was commissioned by Carers Trust to look into the experiences and needs of male carers, and to help raise awareness of the fact that they might not be getting the support they need.

Are you a man who’s a carer? Do you know a man who is? Please leave us a comment and tell us about it. If you’d like to write an article for us about your experiences, even better.