Having a baby could set your career back six years, claims survey

Balancing career and family is a challenge most women come up against at some stage of their working lives.

While becoming a father can and does impact on men's careers, the physical side of having a child (pregnancy, birth, breast-feeding and everything in between), as well as cultural norms and disproportionate parental leave for new mums compared to dads, can mean women have to take a significant step back from their work to have kids. New research has shown just how much becoming a mum can affect a woman's career. A survey of 1,000 women who have had children reveals that in the UK, 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.

"It may not be a surprise to learn having a baby changes your life, but we might not realise just how long it takes to adjust to it – especially in the workplace," said a spokesman for Easy Offices, which commissioned the survey.

While these figures represent working mums in the UK, Irish mamas will no doubt have their own stories of their careers clashing with motherhood. If you'd like to share yours, we'd love to hear it. Join the conversation in the Facebook comments or on Twitter.