8 Days and Counting

8 days until Mothers’ Day. I am still working on explaining the concepts of “breakfast in bed” and “get Daddy to help you” to my 3 year-old. There’s still time and I think I might make it this year!

In the lead up to the big day, I thought I would explore a number of issues that affect mothers’ lives. Since nothing inspires fear in the hearts of working women more than maternity leave, I thought I would start with workplace issues.

You may remember my post about study results that showed motherhood makes women smarter, more focussed and more productive. You would think business and industry would want to capitalize on this pool of intelligence, but there are some disturbing examples of the opposite. Ericsson, in particular, recently offered voluntary buy outs to 1000 of its Swedish workforce ages 35 to 50. The company plans to replace those people of prime parenting age with 900 workers under 30. Which got me thinking: are older workers so inflexible that the technology industries need to replace their employees at the first sign of gray hair? So, I thought about how my own mother has gone from completely unaware of technology altogether, to using it in her professional life. Then, I found some other stories about equally inspiring women who overcame technophobia for my Globe and Mail Technology column. The results are good for mothers and probably bad for short-sighted companies like Ericsson.

It appears I am not the only one whose research shows mothers have quite a lot to contribute to the workforce. Statscan, the government body that measures social trends in Canada, reported that the number of working women over 25 increased by 1.5%. In contrast, the number of working men increased by just 0.2%.

That doesn’t mean all the news is good. While unemployment in parts of Canada hasn’t been lower in decades, trends from around the world are evident there too. Employment may be up, but average salaries are down. And, since I’ve read Charles Dickens and Jane Austen and I’ve learned from it, this new information also reminds me of the massive social issues that followed the industrial revolution. The mills fired men to hire women and children because they were cheaper labour.

So what do I take away from this mixed news? Working mothers are productive employees who have a lot to contribute to all parts of society. That said, we cannot settle for less in the workplace. That only seems to drive our husbands, brothers, fathers and sons out of work. While gender equality in the workplace might still be seen as just a “feminist issue,” that is a clouded view. Equality is what’s good for everyone.