Why does nobody talk about single parents?
A few years ago, I ran a personal brand workshop on a women’s development day for a central government client. It was great fun, and I was characteristically open about my single parent status, and what that means for me and my personal brand. At the end of the session, several women approached me and expressed amazement that I felt comfortable being so open, and told me that they never mention the fact they are a single parent for fear of discrimination. And they are right be cautious: a recent study by the Single Parents Rights Campaign found that 80% of single parents felt they had experienced discrimination, and 59% of these had experienced it in the workplace.
I have been a single parent for 9 years, and despite working in the DE&I field, I have yet to hear a client mention single parents as a group of people who they are interested in attracting, retaining, or developing. Or to see anyone include single parent status as an option in their organisation’s demographic survey, or, if I am totally honest, really even mention them at all. This is despite the fact that there are 2.9 million single parents in the UK (86% women), and one in four families is a single parent family. In fact, a University of Sheffield research project that followed 27,800 households with children over a six-year period, found that 1/3rd of the families had been a single parent family at some point over the six year period.
As a group, we are twice as likely as others to work part time (I do four days a week), and are significantly more likely to be in lower paid roles, with less chance of progression. As a result, 43% of working age single parents live in poverty, with many caught in a benefits trap because of the incredibly high cost of childcare. This continues into retirement, with single mothers having an average pension pot of 1/3rd the size of a married woman, and 1/10th the size of the average man.
I write this, not as a ‘woe is me’ piece to ask you get out your violins – I am well aware of my privileged position of being in a well-paid job, with a supportive employer, and my daughters dad involved in her life both physically and financially. Yet even for me, it is hard to express just how hard lockdown and home schooling has been. I can’t begin to imagine how it has been for others who are in a less privileged position that I’m in.
I am writing this because I want to start the conversation about single parents – I want us to come out of the shadows and to help others to understand the particular challenges we face in life, and in particular in the workplace.
This article was previously published on LinkedIn
