What we have learned about women’s experiences of insecure work

Posted on by Olivia Gable

A woman in an orange shirt sits at a desk looking at a computer and some documents, while holding a baby on her lap.

Over the last year, the Work Foundation has developed deeper insight into the relationship between gender and insecure work. Severely insecure work is defined in our UK Insecure Work Index 2022 as experiencing more than one form of insecure work across contractual insecurity, financial insecurity and access to employment rights and protections.

Through three major reports, we have shown that not only are women more likely to be in severely insecure work, mothers of young children, and women from some minority ethnic backgrounds are especially at risk. Women are also more likely to say childcare costs and availability limit their job choice.

Existing inequalities in the labour market negatively impact women

We recently found in our Limiting Choices report, which surveyed 2,000 secure and 2,000 insecure workers, that women in insecure work were 2.4 times more likely to experience low pay than men. A quarter of women (26%) in our survey who were in insecure work reported they earned less than £18,000 per year, compared with 11% of men in insecure work.

The glass ceiling in the UK continues to hold women back from progressing into higher paid senior roles. Our Gender Matters 2022 work with the Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership at Lancaster University found that just 8% of FTSE 100 CEOs were women, and there was no representation of Black and minority ethnic women.

Women are also over-represented in part-time work, which widens inequalities and has an impact on their earnings and career progression. Analysis from the Office for National Statistics found in 2019 that before the pandemic, the gender pay gap widened after the age of 40 because women were more likely to work in low-paid occupations and less likely to be in higher-wage managerial roles than men and younger women.

Some women face compounded risks of being in severely insecure work

Our report on The Gender Gap found that, in the UK, women were over-represented in severely insecure work, with 26% of working women (3.9 million) in severely insecure work, compared to 14% of working men.

While women are already more likely to be in severely insecure work, other factors and characteristics can amplify this risk.

The chances that women will experience severely insecure work increase for Black and minority ethnic women and disabled women. Black women (30.5%) and women from Pakistani (34.4%) and Bangladeshi (34.9%) backgrounds, in particular, face additional risk of being in severely insecure work, when compared to men from the same backgrounds.

We have also found it was more likely that mothers of younger children would experience severely insecure work, compared to fathers of young children. Mothers of children aged 9 or under were 2.7 times more likely to experience severely insecure work than fathers.[1]

Why do women end up in insecure work at a greater rate?

Women are also significantly more likely than men to report that their job choices are limited by where they live and how far jobs are located from their home, childcare costs, and availability of childcare.

Over the last few years, there has been a wealth of research analysing the burden that high childcare costs and low maternity pay place on women. Because women still provide the majority of care for children, the rising costs of childcare and low rates of maternity pay have been adversely impacting women’s careers. Analysis by Joseph Rowntree Foundation showed that maternity pay levels, even when enhanced by employers, still only provides less than 50% earnings replacement for someone who earned £500 per week.

When women become pregnant and take maternity leave, they can also face a loss of lifetime earnings due to having children, known as the ‘motherhood penalty.’ Beyond lost earnings, Pregnant Then Screwed recently surveyed 24,000 parents, and found that 52% of mothers reported they experienced ‘some form of discrimination’ during and because of their pregnancy or maternity leave.

We also found in our Limiting Choices work that 63% of insecure workers who were parents with children under 15 said their mental health was affected ‘all’ or ‘some of the time’ by concerns their demands at work would impact their ability to meet family commitments - compared with 49% of insecure workers without children under 15. This appears to show persisting tensions people feel between being able to fulfil their demands at work while still providing care for children and family members.

Being forced to choose between the two can trap women in lower-paid roles because they need flexibility, and attitudes about women’s commitment to work can punish them through lost progression opportunities.

The relationship between insecure work and wellbeing for women

When women face barriers to progression, this can impact more than their careers.

Being a woman in insecure work comes with additional risks to wellbeing. In 2023, nearly one in three women in insecure work report that they are struggling to get by financially, compared to less than a quarter of men in insecure jobs. Such financial difficulties can have a further negative impact on mental health. While we found through a logistic regression that earning more than £25,000 halved the likelihood of poor mental health, the impact is not as great for insecure workers.

One in three insecure workers feel uncertain as to how much they will earn in the next three months, versus one in five secure workers. People are also 3.7 times more likely to report experiencing poor mental health when they lack confidence they could meet unexpected expenses.

How can we reduce the risks of being in insecure work for women?

Firstly, as women are over-represented in low-wage jobs, the UK Government should boost support for the lowest-paid workers:

  • The Low Pay Commission should recommend raising the national minimum wage in April 2024 in line, or beyond inflation, to ensure that those who are lowest paid are best supported through the cost of living crisis.

Then, to specifically support women with children to access affordable childcare and not lose out on lifetime earnings due to having children:

  • The Department for Education should monitor the implementation of increased childcare provision within the sector and develop a clear long-term workforce strategy, working with Government to develop long-term funding plans to ensure the sector can manage increased demand.
  • The Department for Business and Trade and Government Office for Equalities should increase the rate of income-replacement for maternity, paternity and parental leave, and they should conduct further review with employers and parents on the provision of maternity, paternity and shared parental leave to ensure legislation is lining up with parents’ ambitions.

To support women’s wellbeing and to ensure they can stay in work and access progression opportunities:

  • The Department for Business and Trade should adapt the right to request predictable working patterns to start from day one on the job • Narrow the reasons employers may give for refusal, to make it easier for workers to challenge unfavourable decisions.

Perhaps one of the most beneficial actions to supporting women to be able to progress their careers will be the further proliferation of flexible working. The brand new Flexible Working Act 2023 is a big step forward, but more can be done to normalise flexible working:

  • The Department for Business and Trade should: Oblige employers to embed flexibility in all roles and make it available to both men and women from their first day at work, and actively promote flexible working to employers and employer bodies.

If you or your organisation is interested in our work in this area, get in touch if you’d like to explore this more.

[1] Source: Work Foundation calculations of the ONS Labour Force Survey 2021/22.

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