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Women are asking to be furloughed to cope with home-schooling, but are their jobs now at more risk?

Woman homeschooling daughter and son - Klaus Vedfelt/Digital Vision
Woman homeschooling daughter and son - Klaus Vedfelt/Digital Vision
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Coronavirus Charity Appeal - compact puff to donate page - article embed

On Sunday 10 May, when Boris Johnson announced only children in reception and years 1 and 6 would be going back on 1 June, I burst into tears. I don’t often cry, but as I thought about my young daughters, who are in years 2 and 5 (they’re seven and nine), I wondered how on earth I would be able to continue to work and home-school them until September, give or take a few weeks of summer ‘holidays’.

Moments later my WhatsApp groups — made up almost entirely of working mothers with school-age children — began pinging with messages wondering the same thing. Some were thinking about reducing their hours, taking a chunk of unpaid leave, or asking to be furloughed.

Because it seems the logistics of lockdown home-schooling and childcare are largely playing into age-old inequalities, with working mothers bearing the brunt. I’ve heard countless stories (and have some personal experience) of fathers setting up camp in home studies or office gardens, while mothers work at the kitchen table alongside children who need home-schooling, and a seemingly endless supply of attention, meals and comfort.

Mother working at the kitchen table with child - Milos Stankovic
Mother working at the kitchen table with child - Milos Stankovic

Parents can currently ask to be furloughed on 80 per cent of their salary, if they’re unable to work due to caring or home-schooling responsibilities. More than 7 million workers are currently furloughed in the UK and an estimated 2 million are newly unemployed, with women accounting for 60 per cent of those losing their jobs.

“We initially welcomed the option for parents to be furloughed for childcare reasons,” says Mubeen Bhutta, head of policy and research at the charity Working Families. “But there’s evidence of a retraction to traditional gender ideas in lockdown. What we’re now concerned about is how the burden of homeschooling and childcare is falling disproportionately onto women. We know they’re more likely to ask to be furloughed, which means they’re more likely to be the first in line when it comes to redundancy further down the line.”

A recent report from the London School of Economics also found the lockdown will exacerbate the gender pay gap, because women are more likely to lose their jobs in the upcoming recession, thanks to being over--represented in sectors predicted to be hit the hardest, like hospitality, leisure and the arts.

“At the start of lockdown, it was celebrated to be furloughed,” says Christine Armstrong, author of The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have Children and a Career and Stay Sane(ish). “Among my friends, if you had been furloughed there was a sense of, ‘You’re so lucky, now you’ll get to home-school, run your home and get paid.’ All my friends were asking how they could get furloughed. But is there a price to pay later on?”

Mother of two, Lucy Jones* asked to be furloughed from her part-time job in marketing at the beginning of lockdown. “Initially I was really happy when they said yes. I have two sons aged four and eight and my eldest needs a lot of help with schoolwork because he struggles with concentration. While my friends were having an absolute nightmare juggling work and home-schooling, or simply ignoring their children so they could work, I felt able to focus on the boys and get through all their school work.”

But last week, Lucy received a letter from her company, which has been hit badly by the lockdown, to say she was being considered for redundancy. “Who knows if my furlough request put a mark against my name?” she says. “I think it’s likely.”

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Indeed, Armstrong says working mothers who are considering downing tools to get their children through the next few months should ask themselves whether those tools will still be there when all this is over. “Will they be passed over for promotions in favour of childless colleagues who continued to work uninterrupted throughout the crisis?” she asks. “Will they still get pay rises? Will their hours or job title change? Will they have a black mark by their name and be seen as expendable when companies make cuts?”

Justine Roberts, founder of Mumsnet, says her users, particularly those who are lone parents or whose spouses work in essential services, have been talking a lot about this issue: “There’s no doubt there’s a group of parents, often women, who have found lockdown devastatingly difficult,” she says. “They talk about the impossibility of working effectively from home while coping with preschool or school-age children, and they are often extremely worried that, because of the unavoidable impact on their work performance, they will be the first in line for any redundancies if the economic situation worsens further.

“They feel ignored in the national debate and have asked for some governmental recognition of their situation, perhaps in the form of paid parental leave until schools and childcare settings are fully re-opened.”

Claire Naylor, 31, from West Sussex, is a home services manager for a housing association and gave birth to her third child last July. She also has a seven-year-old son and two-year-old daughter and supports a new petition, which currently has over 200,000 signatures, to extend maternity leaves during the pandemic, after she was turned down for furlough.

“I officially returned from maternity leave on 13 April. I assumed my son would be back at school at the beginning of June, so I phoned my boss asking to be furloughed but she said they were only furloughing surveyors and I would ‘just have to make it work’. We’re being expected to work around our children, keeping our phones with us at all times and working when our children are in bed.

“I don’t have any childcare until September because my childminder is busy with children of key workers. My husband will be expected to go back to work soon, leaving me at home with three young children, trying to work. He’s new and doesn’t want to rock the boat. Sometimes I have to attend sites to deal with gas leaks, or attend court, but how can I — with three children in tow?”

Phil Mitchell, a partner at accountancy firm KPMG — which has chosen not to use the government’s furlough scheme — says the company has created ‘social contracts’ with its employees. “Early on we asked them, what hours can you work? What are the best times to work, and what times are off limits due to home-schooling?” He says if working parents haven’t done this already they should do so now with their line manager.

Mitchell says that, anecdotally, more women have asked to be furloughed, or reduce their hours, and points out that working mothers still, on average, earn less than fathers. Forty per cent of women in the UK are employed part-time compared to just 13 per cent of men. And in some households it makes more economic sense for a mother to ask to be furloughed.

“There are conversations going on in households right now along the lines of, ‘Whose job can we least afford to lose?’” says Armstrong. “However, the husband of one of my friends, who earns more than her, was furloughed and she wasn’t. But while she continues to work, she admits he can’t control their children and they continue to seek her out and disrupt her work. It’s the role we put women in and it’s why children will often walk straight past their father and go and find their mother to ask for a snack.

“My friend says she wishes she was the one who was furloughed because it would be easier. She ends up working in the evenings to make up for all the interruptions, which is something I’ve also heard from other friends during the crisis. Whichever way you look at it, working mothers are going to take a huge hit at the end of all this.”

Know your rights: Q&A with ​Joseph Lappin, Partner and Head of Employment at Stewarts law firm

Am I allowed to ask to be furloughed?

You can ask your employer to be furloughed but you cannot insist on being placed on furlough leave. This decision lies with your employer. There is no obligation on an employer to consult with employees before selecting staff for furlough leave. Employers also don’t need to justify their decisions to employees who are not selected for furlough leave.

Does my employer have to consider my request, and can I appeal the decision?

In short, no. But, if you are not selected for furlough leave and you believe that the employer’s selection criteria is unfair or discriminatory you can raise a grievance, which your employer should investigate.

Are my employment rights affected by my furloughed status?

Your continuity of service will continue and your statutory employment rights should not be affected. Your pay may be reduced during furlough leave but this should be a temporary amendment to your terms of employment.

Can I ask for furlough to be extended or cut shorter?

How long you are placed on furlough leave is a decision for your employer. However, if you believe that the landscape has shifted and that there is now sufficient work for you to do then speak to your employer about returning to work. If your employer decides to bring your period of furlough leave to an end there is little you can do about this. You cannot insist that you should stay on furlough leave.

Do I have a right to ask for unpaid leave to look after children?

All employees have the right to take “reasonable” unpaid time off work where it is necessary to care for dependants. The amount of time that can be taken as leave is not limited or defined by the relevant legislation but it would be reasonable, in my view, for a parent to take time off to care for children who cannot attend school during the Covid-19 pandemic. If you are asked to return to work but you can’t, because you need to care for your child, you should inform your employer as soon as possible of the reason for your absence. You should also give an indication of when you expect to return to work, although this will be difficult if no date for has been set for reopening schools.