When author and mother-of-two Davina Quinlivan was interviewing for new roles online five years ago, she would hide all evidence of her two children, moving Mother’s Day cards, their artwork and stray Pokemon cards.
Quinlivan, author of recently published Possessions: A Memoir of Transformation in an Era of Precarity, felt she needed to give each interview “the best shot” and couldn’t take the risk of motherhood “impacting me, even a small amount”. As an academic who has spent much of her career teaching feminist theory, she found it deeply conflicting.
“It’s a difficult feeling, because why would I do that? It’s so painful to pretend to vanish [my children] away. Yet I know on some unconscious level that people interviewing are thinking: ‘Well, if this child is unwell, our teaching schedule goes down.’ Of course, there is support for working carers, but you have to jump through the hoops of getting the job in the first place,” she explains. “I wanted to give myself opportunities. I don’t think there were vast numbers of mums being interviewed for these jobs, and I knew who would get those jobs in the end – and they weren’t mums.”
She’s one of an increasing number of women who have felt the need to hide motherhood during job interviews. Peanut, the world’s largest community app for mums, ran a poll exclusively for The i Paper and found that the majority of mothers – 60 per cent – don’t mention caring responsibilities during job interviews, while six per cent actively hide any trace of motherhood until they are offered a role. This compares with 34 per cent of mums who actively mention their children in interviews, the poll of 580 mothers found. “We’re seeing more mothers concealing their children from interviewers, which underscores the need for our working culture to catch up. When honesty becomes a hiring risk, the problem isn’t with the candidate – it’s with the system,” Michelle Kennedy, CEO of Peanut, believes.
You might think caring responsibilities should never be discussed in a job interview. But research consistently shows that men can actually experience a “fatherhood premium” – where having children actually increases their chances of getting hired. In one study, professor Stephen Benard at Indiana University sent identical fictionalised CVs to companies from female and male job “candidates”, some mentioning their volunteer work for the Parents Teacher Association. Fathers received a slightly higher callback rate than childless men, while employers were 100 per cent less likely to call back mothers than childless women.
Lana Phillips, a marketing assistant from Derby with two children, aged six and four, learnt to hide motherhood after a job interview went wrong. “My children were three and one at the time. The interview was going well and it came up naturally that I had kids. The head of operations asked how old they were. When I told her, she replied, ‘They need their mummy at home with them at this stage.’ Then explained she stayed at home with her three children until they were school age. I was already back at work. I found it especially shocking that a woman was making this judgment. The interview went sour and ended five minutes later. I received an email saying I hadn’t got the job,” she remembers.
Since then, she has avoided mentioning her children in interviews. “Then, if I’m turned down, I know it’s because of me, not because I have children,” she says. She is relieved her employer is supportive and offers flexibility if she wants to watch a school show.
Discrimination against mothers is something that charity Pregnant Then Screwed has been campaigning against for a decade. CEO Rachel Grocott says: “The reality is that many bosses still see motherhood as a burden to business. Women have faced this discrimination for decades – from assumptions they might become parents, to the belief they ‘won’t come back’ from maternity leave, to the stereotype that mothers are less passionate, less talented and less productive. Anyone experiencing it should seek advice on their rights and protections. Mothers are some of the most talented, productive employees and when you discriminate or push them out, you pay the cultural and financial price as parents move to employers who support them. That’s the economic truth.”
Joeli Brearley, founder of Growth Spurt which gives advice to women returning to work after becoming parents, says: “I spoke to a recruitment consultant who was told by 80 per cent of his clients not to put forward women with children under the age of five. We are seeing pregnancy and maternity discrimination rising year on year. When the economy gets tricky, people feel uncomfortable and revert back to old biases,” she explains. “Things are taking a step backwards but we have a government that is making positive changes with the Employment Rights Act last year and the Parental Leave review currently underway.”
Many mothers have experienced “ghosting” from recruiters. Florence, who has three children under five, recently started interviewing. “I have multiple childcare options, from nursery to family living closeby,” she explains. “I had one recruiter contact me saying I was a perfect fit for a role. They were really positive until I mentioned children, when he asked how I’d manage work and my childcare responsibilities. I never heard from him again.”
Brearley says in a job interview it’s not illegal to ask a candidate if they are a parent, but it is illegal if an employer acts on that information. “We cannot prove that is the reason for discriminating, though,” she says. “More often than not, interviewers ask subtle questions about candidates’ personal lives, such as: ‘How do you manage your personal life alongside work?’ How to react to this depends on where you are in your career; we know that bias exists. For the majority of people, it is better to wait until you are offered a job to ask for flexible working or mention children, then you can prove discrimination. But if you’re very senior, have privilege [to choose your role] and power, then ask the questions you want.”
She says this is the opposite for men: mentioning children in an interview – as long as there is no request for flexible working – boosts their chance of success as they are seen as “responsible and better employees”. Fathers are perceived as five percentage points more committed than childless men at work, according to research by Harvard Kennedy School, while mothers are seen as 12 percentage points less committed than non-mothers.
Sophie Catto, managing director of AllBright everywoman, which supports development of women in leadership roles, and whose children are seven and five, says: “No woman should ever feel she has to hide being a mother in a job interview. There is no lack of ambition in women who are mothers. Motherhood builds skills from prioritisation and decision-making under pressure to resilience, adaptability and problem solving. It strengthens emotional intelligence, empathy and communication, while also sharpening efficiency and the ability to manage competing demands. When businesses recognise and value this, it has a direct impact on confidence, progression and retention, something we have positively experienced in our office.
“I recommend training for line managers who aren’t parents and an open calendar policy from business leaders: I have sports days and parents evenings in my diary and this inspires others to do the same. When working flexibly feels normal and doesn’t come with a hidden career trade-off, we see stronger retention, deeper engagement and more sustainable long-term progression.”
Quinlivan, whose children are now 13 and 10, found the experience of “vanishing” her children so painful that she will never do it again. “It seemed impossible [at that time] to think I had choice. But I did: by giving myself the tools so that I could make my own work,” she says. She’s built her self-employed creative career over the past four years, while remaining in academia running an online course with the University of Bristol and holding a Research Fellowship.
“Luckily, I’ve been treated brilliantly – sometimes my children come along and sit at the back in seminars. I now display motherhood in a way that makes it easier [for employers] to understand how my skills are immensely important and translatable to any kind of professional life. Anyone who is a carer knows the amount of creative power, care, love and challenge that goes into raising a human. I bring all those skills to the workplace.”