When it comes to cash, guess what’s the worst age for being a woman...

New research shows the true cost of being female, writes Hannah Fearn, and – spoiler alert – we aren’t exactly in the pink

Anyone hoping that things will improve financially once their children fly the nest should listen carefully (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Being a woman who writes about society on social media is a turbulent ride. Mention anything about the gender pay gap and someone will be along sharpish to tell you that any divergence in average incomes occurs because women choose a different life path – they have children, and then they step back from work.

It doesn’t matter how many times you present the bald facts (not least that the pay gap exists for women who are childfree too, and that men also parent those children while working), the myth prevails. And woe betide you if you mention the “mental load”.

But, then, reading this today you know exactly what I mean by the “mental load”. A decade ago that wouldn’t have been the case. We have the pandemic to thank for that.

Since the difficulties of parenting, educating and working in tandem were exposed during lockdown, a wave of writing and discussion on the value of unpaid labour has been unleashed. With new laws around flexible working recently unveiled and loud conversations about the motherhood penalty in the workplace, change finally feels possible.

But the fertile years are only a short chapter of a woman’s life. I’ve had a first look at new research from academics at Manchester Metropolitan University, which found that discrimination in the workplace based on the burden of unpaid labour goes on well beyond the era of parenting small children, or the possibility of pregnancy and maternity leave. In fact, the inequalities that women face in their early-to-mid working years only worsen with time.

Anyone hoping that things will improve financially once their children fly the nest should listen carefully. It’s not good news: the gender pension gap is worse than the gender pay gap.

The four year study based on in-depth interviews with 100 woman across Manchester found that unpaid care for both young and old relatives, volunteer work to support others, and the balance of managing work alongside medical conditions were all taking a huge toll on their working lives and financial health.

Almost half (46 per cent) of the 100 women who took part in the project were involved in voluntary work, and just over a third had caring responsibilities. In fact, most of the women said they had provided family care work throughout their lives. Half said they were living with a health condition or a disability too.

One participant, a 56-year-old woman called Lois, described caring for her mother with dementia: “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s harder than being a single mum, which I’ve done… but overall, do I think I’m valued? No, not at all.” That work has immense value, but economically Lois has become invisible.

The academics involved in the study quite sensibly concluded that women in mid-life and beyond were frequently “overlooked, marginalised, and forced to take early retirement – with inevitable consequences on earning ability and life quality.” Those words could be written about the years of motherhood too. The care work changes but the effect on women’s financial health doesn’t: at every stage, women’s contribution to the functioning and growth of our society is fiscally ignored leaving them at risk of debt and poverty.

This is not a new point, I accept. But it is one that sadly needs to be made, generation after generation after generation.

And as the lead academic on the study, Dr Sarah Campbell, says: “We need action to address the inequalities faced by women across their life course that continue to see the enormous gender pensions gap. Inequalities need addressing now if we are to create more certain futures for older women.”

The report makes sensible, practical suggestions for change. A state pension top-up covering time taken out of employment to care for family members at whatever stage in life shouldn’t be an inspired idea, yet from where we stand right now, it is. The Labour government-in-waiting should name that simple policy change in its election manifesto. Flexible working ought to be a basic right, not a hope or expectation, yet the welcome changes to the law going through parliament now are baby steps, not a step change.

The report’s final recommendation is philosophical as much as it is political: “Women should be recognised economically for the value of their unpaid work”. Of course they should, at every stage in their lives. And so should the men who, far less frequently but with nevertheless a growing likelihood, take on that work too. How we could make that happen is a matter of debate, in which I personally favour the introduction of some form of universal basic income. Whether we make it happen is the more pertinent question.