by Anna Sofat
There have been huge changes in women's lives in recent decades and we've become an economic force to be reckoned with. In the UK women are setting up and running successful businesses at an astonishing rate and choosing the flexibility of self-employment as a route to financial independence.
While there is much to be positive about, and progress is being made, there is still some way to go. 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act but still women struggle to achieve parity with their male counterparts. Our industry of financial services (making up 20% of the FTSE) is one of the worst culprits, with the biggest pay gap in the UK economy. In fact, current calculations suggest it would take 108 years to close the economic gender gap worldwide.
The issue of gender inequality in senior roles remains a persistent problem. Women are moving up the corporate ladder to become business leaders but not at the pace we might like. There's also not the same pipeline of talent from entry level that there is for men - the ‘broken rung' syndrome. For example:
After women made demonstrable progress reaching positions of influence and seniority in the latter half of the 20th century, momentum seems to have slowed. Today, we're facing the same problems of female representation that we hoped by now would have been a thing of the past. The fact is, women have stalled. We're in what I call ‘the sticky middle' - reaching middle management but unable to break through to senior roles. Why is this? There are a number of reasons.
The familiar rationalisation we make for why women don't occupy enough senior roles is nearly always based around some variation of the work-life balance conundrum. We talk about the inevitability of women being obligated to their families, so they are therefore unable to devote sufficient time and energy to professional advancement. It's a well-worn explanation, but recent research in the Harvard Business Review would suggest that it falls short of fully capturing the real reasons we are not achieving gender parity. After all, in this day and age, men also need to walk the work-life balance tight-rope, but they evidently still manage to advance.
You might be surprised by one of the suggested factors behind a lack of female representation in senior roles. It's common for businesses to offer what they see as more accommodating options for women such as flexible working to help them to adapt to family-balancing demands.
However, often the employees who take advantage of these offerings do so at the expense of their continued career progression. Accepting these accommodations attracts a stigma and can result in sacrifices in power, status and income. Instead of helping a woman's career, as it's intended, flexible working often starts to derail it. The multiplied effect of this is a thinning out of available successful, capable and qualified women who make it to the C-Suite and beyond.
The 24/7 culture of overworking, overpromising and overdelivering is equally corrosive to the professional development of women. Overwork is a problem that affects both men and women. But when women take up the option to work fewer hours, the ultimate impact it will have on their career ambitions is clear. Fewer hours put in automatically makes them less promotable than men. In a culture where we prioritize being always available, choosing to be less available is a distinct disadvantage.
In general, in our culture, male and female employees feel compelled to meet ever extending demands to overwork to stand out amongst their colleagues or to help the business get ahead against competitors. But research regularly shows that long hours tend not to boost productivity - in fact, they have the reverse effect. The only thing they tend to increase is sick leave.
There are some refreshing and instructive exceptions to this corrosive culture. As Ruth Handcock, CEO of Octopus Investments, has spoken publicly about not being apologetic about the choices she has made to work full time but conversely also for leaving work on the dot at 5pm to go home to be with her children.
Women are competitive - we've needed to be to get this far. Some are finding the support they need to get the balance right – but for many women the demands and responsibilities are difficult to juggle. A Workplace Benefits report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch in 2019 points out that women are much more susceptible to serious anxiety, stress, fear and guilt about meeting the financial needs and expectations of family and society. Even if women are happy to take the lead in providing for our family's financial demands, they can feel conflicted about the choices they're making.
Successful or potentially successful, women with children can often find themselves in a no-win position when it comes to balancing work and life. If they accept part-time or flexible hours they could undermine their career progression; if they refuse them and prioritise their professional ambitions they undermine their status as a good mother. In the worst case scenario they are judged negatively in both the professional and personal spheres. What sort of example is that to set young women just starting out in their careers?
So how do we fix the problem of the sticky middle? We acknowledge and then address the issues embedded in our professional culture - like overworking, stigmatising professional flexibility, and the challenge of creating a competitive yet compassionate workplace for women (and men). Only then will we start to see real progress being made.
Anna Sofat is the Associate Director at Progenyand founder and MD of Addidi, the Voice of Women's Wealth. Addidi recently won Money Marketing's Small Advisor of the Year award and has featured as one of the Top 100 Advisory firm by the New Model Adviser magazine in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018. Prior to founding Addidi, Anna was the MD at Fiona Price & Partners, the first business set up specifically to provide financial advice for women by women.
As well as advising private clients, Anna is a regular contributor to national press and TV. Anna has been awarded the Unbaised.co.uk's Financial Adviser of the year award; nominated the Top female Adviser by FT's Financial Adviser in 2015 and was a finalist in the First Women 2017 Awards for the Finance category.
Away from work, she is married and a mother of two girls. Her interests are her family, travel and current affairs; in the past she has served as an elected Councillor on Rochester City Council and Halling Parish Council. She was also a non executive director for the social enterprise, Fair Finance from its inception in 2005 to 2014.
