It\u2019s a scene playing out in homes across the country: a woman balances a laptop on one knee and a toddler on the other while trying to prepare for a pitch, book childcare and chase invoices before dinner. She\u2019s not just running a business; she\u2019s running a household, a career and an obstacle course of assumptions. <\/p>\n
In the background, a partner \u2014 perhaps supportive, perhaps not \u2014 glances up from his own screen, the expectation still hanging in the air: hers is the flexible role. She can scale back. She will fill the gaps.<\/p>\n
And yet, she may be the one with the bigger vision. The one building a business. The one with more growth and earning potential \u2014 if only the system and society could keep up.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Meet the bosses building better workplaces for women \u2014 and why it matters<\/a><\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with a hard fact: the gender pay gap in the UK remains stubborn. In April 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the gap for full\u2011time employees stood at 7 per cent, down slightly from 7.5 per cent the year before. Taking part\u2011time employees into account, the gap was 13.1 per cent \u2014 a significant disparity.<\/p>\n At the heart of the matter is the \u201cmotherhood penalty\u201d. This month, the ONS revealed that, on average, women lose \u00a365,618 in earnings in the first five years after the birth of their first child \u2014 a drop of 42 per cent in monthly earnings compared with the year before childbirth. That figure rises only with subsequent children: another \u00a326,300 after a second child and \u00a332,400 after a third.<\/p>\n \u2022 The true cost of motherhood? Start with \u00a365,000 in lost earnings<\/a><\/p>\n This \u201cmotherhood penalty\u201d is compounded by the uneven take-up of shared parental leave, the policy introduced by the coalition government in 2015 to persuade couples to share childcare in a more balanced way. Allowing partners to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between them, it is, in theory, a progressive policy that encourages the non-birthing partner to take a more active role in their child\u2019s upbringing from the very beginning. <\/p>\n In practice, uptake remains dismally low: only about 2 per cent to 8 per cent of eligible fathers take it. <\/p>\n Both cultural and financial factors are to blame. Many families simply can\u2019t afford for the higher earner \u2014 still usually the man \u2014 to take extended periods of leave, especially if employers don\u2019t choose to offer enhanced packages and it\u2019s paid at the statutory minimum. <\/p>\n More deeply, there remains a persistent stigma that men taking time out for caring are less committed to their careers. But until we shift the cultural perception that childcare is women\u2019s work, shared leave will remain underused \u2014 and women will continue to bear the brunt of interrupted careers, lost earnings and putting plans to start their own businesses on ice. <\/p>\n If the first issue is the pay gap \u2014 the topic of this week\u2019s episode of our new podcast, The Business<\/a> \u2014 the second is the entrepreneurship gap. <\/p>\n Countless studies have shown that women start fewer businesses than men, and if they do, they get less access to growth capital and less frequently grow their ventures to a significant scale. The findings of an inquiry from the women and equalities committee (WEC) of the House of Commons just last week reminded us of the stark reality. Only 20 per cent of businesses are female\u2011led, and just 2 per cent of venture capital in 2024 went to back a female founder (down from 2.5 per cent in 2023).<\/p>\n The WEC also estimated that if women entrepreneurs were funded to the same level as men, the UK could unlock an extra \u00a3250 billion in growth.<\/p>\n So, if we are serious about closing the gender pay gap and encouraging women to start and scale businesses at the same rate as men, then the change required is not just policy tweaks or funding programmes. Crucially, it\u2019s cultural and societal. We need to become cheerleaders of the idea of women as breadwinners, women as risk\u2011taking founders, women scaling aggressively, and women earning as much as (or more than) male counterparts.<\/p>\n Cultural and societal norms matter. Even when policies exist \u2014 mentorship programmes, grants for women entrepreneurs, transparent pay reporting \u2014 they often run up against narratives that reinforce who is seen as the default earner or founder. Female founders often hear questions about how they will manage home life, or when they are going to have children. Those kinds of questions rarely get asked of male founders. <\/p>\n The WEC report identifies that structural barriers around maternity and caring are deeply embedded in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Meanwhile, within households and workplaces, the idea of a woman being the main earner still sometimes carries an awkwardness. The expectation remains: men should provide, women may top up. <\/p>\n One of the most impressive female founders I\u2019ve met is Katrina Hutchinson-O\u2019Neill<\/a> of Join Talent, an outsourced HR provider with clients including Amazon and Microsoft. From a standing start at her kitchen table in 2019, the company, based in Brechin, Scotland, grew to sales of \u00a317.5 million in 2022, topping The Sunday Times 100 ranking of the UK\u2019s fastest-growing private companies<\/a>. <\/p>\n At the time she started the company, she had three children under the age of ten and a husband who was the deputy head of a large private school. When the company took off and the family bought a large house in need of renovation, it became clear that something had to give, and Gareth quit his job in 2022.<\/p>\n For Hutchinson-O\u2019Neill, there was nothing unusual about it: her own mother was the sole earner in her family growing up in Northern Ireland. That was after her policeman father was medically discharged having been shot during the Troubles and breaking his back policing a riot. <\/p>\n Others, though, have struggled more with the gender role reversal. She recalled a business associate suggesting that her husband was \u201cless of a man\u201d because she ran the business and \u201cwore the trousers\u201d. At their children\u2019s school events, people often don\u2019t recognise her. <\/p>\n Does she feel she\u2019s missing out? \u201cI guess I miss it as much as a man would,\u201d she said. And Gareth? \u201cHe couldn\u2019t care less what anybody else thinks. His view has always been he just cares about our family and whether we\u2019re all happy.\u201d <\/p>\n