Basia McDougall MPhil.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

Realistically, there are few conditions under which an organisation will readily admit it has agender inequality issue. An organisation is unlikely to admit to pay bias and may not even beaware of losing its employees as they become parents. Or perhaps companies may not evenbe aware of a bias towards promotion for male managers or a male culture. Not only mightsuch admissions lead to legal action but there is also the possible negative impact if themedia finds out (Grosser and Moon 2009). It might therefore be the case that genderinequality is actually more prevalent than figures suggest.In summary, today as many women as men are in paid employment but many more womenwork part-time. A quarter of women return to full-time work after maternity leave; 40% ofwomen taking maternity leave return to part-time work. The statistics show that pro ratawomen earn comparatively less; are more likely to have a lower status within theirorganisation and are restricted to the number of organisations that do offer flexible, part-timework (Darton and Hurrell 2005).The legislation to support equality is in place; the statistics show that there is incongruencebetween demand and supply. The next section begins to address how organisations react tosuch figures. It will then be possible to consider how this impacts on women’s decisions ontheir work history. Are we there yet? Taking into account the above facts, the answer for themajority of women not wishing to work full-time, would appear to be, an emphatic, “no”.1.4 Maternity leave/career break definitions and rightsAccepting that maternity leave is a critical transition point, as such it is imperative to ensurea tight definition:...maternity leave refers to specifically job-protected leave from employment at thetime of childbirth or adoption. In many countries, maternity leave is a combinedperiod of pre-and post childbirth leave. Most OECD countries set a certainpercentage of wage replacement, ranging from 50% to 100% of wages. (Tanaka2005 p.17)In the UK, there are three types of maternity leave:- Compulsory: an employee is not allowed back within 2 weeks of childbirth;- Ordinary: 26 weeks- Additional: 26 weeksNeither ordinary nor additional leave is subject to reduction based on organisation size, payor length of service. Whilst the parameters of what constitutes maternity leave are clear cut,as will be demonstrated later in the case studies, the tight boundaries are not universallyshared by all women. The majority of literature considering maternity leave or ‘career break’10