EngineerHer

I’m reading a really interesting book right now. (OK I’m reading several interesting books, but only one I’m going to write about on here.

The Wife Drought by Annabel Crabb.

Let’s get this out of the way

This book has a few limitations:

• It discusses at the start that not all relationships are 1 man, 1 woman and a varying number of kids
• It states outright that there are a myriad of family units existing in the world
• It also goes right on ahead and says for the purposes of this book, the focus is on cis men and cis women.

Now, these are limitations. Of course they are. But I’d challenge anyone to write a book covering all the ways we as humans form families. I don’t think it’s possible. And I also think, if we ever make it to the point where gender isn’t the driving force behind who stays home with the kids and who goes to work, we’ll have achieved soooo much!

Of course, if we ever get the point when that happens, there’s a fair chance I’ll be dead and buried – but who knows, I might manage to make the celebrations anyway.

This book isn’t for everyone. But it is discussing why challenging our “traditional since the 1950’s ish” notions of who is the breadwinner and who isn’t is vital for getting the best from ourselves, our societies, our communities and our world.

Why do I need a wife?

Something that became really obvious to me a few years ago, when I started attending women in leadership conferences was that ALL of these women mentioned their supportive spouses. Seriously. Every single one.

You know else they mentioned? The help they still needed because the majority of their husbands had jobs as well.

The Wife Drought mentions this. They mention a study in which global executives were asked the question “Who takes more responsibility for making childcare arrangements?”. Male and female executives. 57% of the women said “I do”. What percentage of the men, you ask?

It’s shockingly low. Like, even lower than you expect.

1%.

3% of families with children under 15 in Australia have the woman in the relationship as working full time.

And honestly? If a man is getting ahead in his career, making waves, climbing that career ladder, there’s a massive chance he has someone at home – usually a wife – to pick up the slack when work demands his attention.

How many women of my generation (Gen X, teetering on the edge of Millennial, just FYI) have said they needed a wife at home. I know I’ve said this. And I don’t even have kids.

“The wife” is the person who is expected to pick up the slack when work gets even more demanding that usual. Who does the domestic management? Makes sure there’s food, toilet roll, clean clothes in the house? Who makes sure the cleaning gets done, if not doing it herself? Who organises the birthday presents, the anniversaries, the play dates, the holidays, the packing, the unpacking…

Who makes it all work?

Now, if I’m honest, I’m writing this from a position of someone who has a husband who does a lot of this for me, but not all, cos he has a disability (or several, depending on how you’re counting). So, I can usually depend on having food in the house and clean clothes.

But I can see it everywhere.

This is bad for men too!

Yeah. It is. It’s a major thing in the workplace for a man to ask for flexible working. The expectation in many workplaces is that a man won’t be too much affected by the birth of a child. In fact, it’s been shown to help his career in many ways – displaying responsibility, capability, etc.

But what are these men missing out on?

Well all the things working mothers get harangued about. What about the men’s relationship with their children? Building those bonds of fatherhood that, frankly, are as important as the bonds of motherhood in a heterosexual relationship.

(Now, I’m not saying every child needs a mother and a father. That’s blatantly not true and I can think of plenty of families off the bat where this isn’t the case and the kids thrive. What I’m saying is that when the composition is a mother and a father rearing children, the fatherhood bond with those children is as important as the motherhood bond. And we’re failing men by assuming they don’t want time with their children when they are young.)

In the same way as most women aren’t born knowing how to change a nappy, most men aren’t born realising they’ll miss out on key moments in their child’s life – and this might be important to them. Not all women want to be mothers. Not all men want to be breadwinners. And a bit more flexibility in society would open up a lot of avenues for development.

The economic case

Yeah, there’s an economic case for this. Allowing both men and women to enter and pause their careers makes economic sense. It’s described in this book as introducing an extra 11% to the Australian economy, which apparently is an entire new mining industry… which, ok has mixed feelings in me, but y’know any world economy growing by 11% would be massive news.

Introducing more flexibility to careers can only benefit wider society for all sorts of reasons. Now, I’m not necessarily talking about the gig economy here – and neither does the book. But assuming people join the workforce in your late teens or early 20’s and work for 40+ years in a straight line, isn’t realistic any more.

There are all sorts of reasons to allow men, women, nonbinary people to engage with their lives and careers in different ways. It adds value to our societies and communities to understand that anyone can have caring responsibilities. it’s not just 30- and 40-yr old women. Flexible workplace policies that benefit working mothers also benefit the entire rest of society!

This isn’t new news. Seriously. This is well known. Flexible working. Job shares. Part time work. Sabbaticals. Childcare support. Development. Remote working. Hybrid working. Mental health support. Employee Resource Groups. Good health care – for the whole family. Asynchronous working.

Look we can all go on and on about this. We’ve all read the articles, engaged with the debates. The fact is – all of the above helps so many more people than just working mothers. Or indeed working fathers.

It’s not just about the fancy stuff, like the massage therapist visiting site. (Although there was nearly a mutiny on site here a few weeks ago when a reflexologist was booked out within minutes. I may have debated leading said mutiny cos I didn’t get on the list… but I’m on for her next visit. It’s ok) There’s no doubt the wellness campaigns like massage therapists, meditation, reflexologists are hugely popular.

But there’s more to it.

Making workplaces welcoming to all employees

I mean, for me, step one is listening to your team. And yourself. Your genitalia really shouldn’t come into your requirements for the workplace (outside some highly specialise and most illegal professions…) For engineers, and STEM workers more broadly, I can’t see how what set of genitals you were born with, if any, have anything to do with your needs in the workplace.

But there are a lot more overlaps for working mothers and working fathers than we care to admit. We kinda overlook the fact that working fathers might be just as interested or more so in seeing their children’s first steps. Or attending school events. Or being there, day after day, to see the fantastic things their little cherub does…

(And look – all kids are amazing. Seriously. I love watching their little brains try to figure something out. It shows so much about problem solving and how people learn these skills.)

Back to the book to finish

I think the book makes some excellent points. And I think, as time moves on, it’s becoming more and more obvious that men and women (both partners, all partners) need to share the child rearing responsibilities differently in the modern world.

What shocked me a little bit was that this book was written in 2014 and I kinda assumed some of the statistics would be out of date and irrelevant, but not as much as you’d think. The following statistics aren’t from the book, but from a 2023 research report from Jennifer Baxter (the below is also directly quoted, not paraphrased):

• Within couple families, there remain gendered patterns of employment, with mothers much more likely than fathers to reduce employment to care for young children. The proportion of mothers employed, though, continues to increase. In 2022, both parents were employed in 71% of couple families with children under 15 years. This compares to 56% in 2000 and 40% in 1979.
• Within couple families, the proportion with both parents working full-time hours is increasing (31% in 2021, up from 22% in 2009), although it remains more common for one parent to be full-time and the other part-time (36% in 2021, this proportion changing little since 2009).
• Mothers are least likely to be employed when they have a child aged under one year (60% of couple mothers and 29% of single mothers with a child aged under one year in 2021). The employment rate then increases when the youngest is one year old (69% of couple mothers and 38% of single mothers with a youngest child aged one year in 2021). Beyond this, the increase in employment is gradual as children grow (up to 81% of couple mothers and 71% of single mothers with a youngest child aged 14 years in 2021).
• Stay-at-home father families are not common, as captured by fathers who are not employed and mothers who are employed. This was 3.8% of families in 2022. Fathers’ employment does not vary with the age of the youngest child, unlike mothers’ employment, but there are some significant differences in employment rates when couple and single fathers are compared, with single fathers more often in part-time work.

So, Covid didn’t change much, aside from a decent enough proportion of working mothers working full time hours increasing….

What can we do?

Well, recognise that diversity – despite the messages coming from certain areas of the world right now – benefits everyone. Giving people options in their career paths is far better for the economy and society lack of options.

And recognise that sometimes what works for clothes, also works for careers: one size never fits all.