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In a study on mothers returning to work, university management department researcher Dr Ee Kheng Ang found that they typically took lower-status jobs and lower pay than before having children.
Mothers who stalled their careers by taking a break to raise children generally faced "downward occupational mobility" and loss of lifetime incomes, she found.
They could then find it very difficult to progress in their careers, particularly from casual or part-time work.
Dr Ang said there was a widely held assumption that mothers going back to work had outdated skills and qualifications and that their performance would be constrained by motherhood.
"The returners are often highly skilled and qualified individuals, but employers appear to treat them as relatively unskilled labour suitable for casual employment," she said.
Dr Ang interviewed 26 women - 22 with tertiary qualifications - for her doctoral thesis, "Career Break or Broken Career? Mothers' Experiences of Returning to Paid Work".
She also interviewed employers, held focus groups, mailed out a national questionnaire and explored Government assistance aimed at helping mothers integrate work and family commitments.
Only three of the 26 women interviewed were in successful second careers and had been promoted. They were single mothers and had qualified for assistance in training and childcare.
Dr Ang said such help should be available to assist women who were not on a benefit but wanting to return to work.
"Further assistance could be in a lump-sum payment to assist with job search costs," she said.
The creation of more good part-time jobs "where the potential for promotions is real and achievable" and where there was a "clear pathway" for part-timers to achieve fulltime positions would ensure that mothers returning to work were not "stuck in dead-end jobs".
- reprinted from the New Zealand Herald