A significant number of women are worried that starting a family will affect their career, a new study has found.
A survey of professional women found that 42 per cent feel nervous about the impact starting a family would have on their career.
They might well have reason to feel concerned – 48 per cent of respondents said that they felt that they had been overlooked at work for promotions and specific projects because they’d had a baby.
Over 3,600 women aged 28 to 40 took part in the survey, which was commissioned by PWC.
“Leaders should focus on creating an environment where both women and men can have attractive career opportunities and can have open conversations on what it takes to progress,” said Ionut Simion of PWC.
These results reflect some other worrying statistics about mums in the workplace.
A UK survey last year revealed that the pay gap between men and women stretches from seven per cent to 21 per cent after a woman has had a child.
Moreover, almost four out of every ten of the women surveyed feel they have been discriminated against at work for having a child.
Overall, half of those surveyed felt becoming a parent had a negative effect on their careers, with a similar percentage of respondents claiming they’d missed an average of two promotions while being out of work to have a child.
Perhaps most worrying of all is the finding that having a child could set a woman’s career back by as much as six years, according to the mums surveyed.
