Breaking the office bias: smashing the stereotypes holding women back

From the gender pay gap to the glass ceiling, women are still bearing the brunt of stereotypical attitudes that limit everything from their pay packet to their career potential. Here we explore why these age-old issues are still affecting young women and effective ways to overcome them

Women on drastically lower pay, constantly overlooked for promotions, and struggling to break through the glass ceiling, no matter how much hard graft and overtime they put in. It might sound like the plot of 60s-based dramas like Mad Men, Hidden Figures and On the Basis Of Sex, but the latest stats reveal that, shockingly, these are still the very real experiences of young women in the workplace today.

According to a study by Young Women’s Trust – a charity that campaigns for an equal world of work for young women – when compared to men their age, young women are losing out on over £5000 a year because they’re being funnelled into low paid jobs and sectors, and getting stuck at the bottom of the career ladder. Not only do they tend to work in lower-paying industries than men, they get fewer promotions and are less likely to be considered for senior positions. Indeed, almost a third (31 per cent) of HR decision makers agree that it is harder for women to progress in their organisation than men.

Barriers also extend beyond just the established workplace, and begin before a woman has even embarked on her chosen career. The stats are stark. Women are far more likely to enter into apprenticeships in lower paying fields, like childcare or social care. For every 20 men who start an apprenticeship in engineering, there’s only one woman, while 13 times as many women do apprenticeships in childcare. And women continue to earn less years after they have completed theirs.

Biases and barriers

(Independent)

“The issues are twofold for young women in the workplace,” says Claire Reindorp, CEO of Young Women’s Trust. “There are boundaries in terms of the fields they go into – for example STEM – that begin from school and extend upward, discouraging young women from studying and entering these sectors. Then across every field, they face further discrimination, in terms of lower salaries, fewer promotions and fewer senior roles being offered as they progress in their careers when compared to their male counterparts.”

Stereotypically ‘female’ roles, such as care work, childcare, and retail, are under-valued and lower paid compared to male-dominated fields such as engineering. “Young women have so much potential but they’re being held back because of structural and cultural barriers that have been in place for far too long. But it’s not just about encouraging young women to go into STEM. We should be valuing vital work like care and education more too. Regardless of the sector, we need to open up opportunities, provide effective support so that young women can access work, and challenge archaic attitudes that prevent them from progressing.”

Moreover, across all sectors, young women are blocked from progressing as easily as men. “We talk about the broken rung at the bottom of the career ladder – young women getting trapped in low paid roles, or having to deal with discrimination and inflexible working conditions. In our last annual report one in five HR professionals still think that men are better suited to senior management roles than women. Stereotyping young women into certain roles is unhelpful and perpetuates the idea that gender determines your capabilities.”

This kind of bias and stereotyping is something Emma, 27, from London, a young woman supported by Young Women’s Trust, has experienced throughout her career in communications. “I’ve experienced discrimination in the workplace on so many levels. In an earlier job I was able to prove that a male peer, who actually had a more junior role, was getting paid more than me. I’ve also been bullied out of a role and my complaint was upheld, with the company admitting that policies had been broken, but because the perpetrator was very senior there would be no further action taken.”

Economic pressures

The pandemic was both a blessing and a curse for women’s labour participation – on one hand, lockdowns normalised and widened access for some women to flexible and hybrid working, which is helpful for those with parenting and caregiving responsibilities (which still, disproportionately, land on women). On the other hand, this varied greatly across sectors, with many women in roles that precluded working from home. Others had no choice but to leave the workforce to fulfil the caregiving responsibilities COVID created.

Coming out of the pandemic, and straight into a cost of living crisis has made the workplace even tougher for young women. “In our Picking up the pieces: Young women’s experiences of 2020 report, it estimated that 1.5 million young women lost their income since the start of the pandemic and over two thirds (69 per cent) of young women claiming benefits said that they did so for the very first time,” says Reindorp.

“There’s definitely an issue with insecure work and that was magnified during the pandemic. In the same report, 43 per cent of young women reported that they had been offered a zero hours contract (compared to 35 per cent of young men). Also, more than half of young women who are parents said they were unable to apply for or left a job because they couldn’t cover childcare costs.”

Even women who do manage to progress in their careers experience bias in the workplace. “Being a woman in a very senior role comes with lots of discrimination unfortunately,” says Rebecca, 32, who lives in the Lake District. “I always get clients thinking that I’m the more junior member of staff just because of my gender, and I’ve been told that I need to be ‘more aggressive and bolshy.’”

Breaking the bias

(Independent)

There are solutions though. Although post-pandemic, hybrid working is much more common, it’s not universal: according to the Young Women’s Trust study, just under a third of women who made a request to work flexibly were denied, while many young women (26 per cent) wouldn’t feel comfortable even making the ask. As a starting point, businesses should ensure all roles where flexible working is offered state this in their job adverts, and instead of waiting for individual requests, flexibility should be available for employees at all levels.

Widespread – and concrete – flexible working opportunities would enable young women to re-enter work, progress quicker and earn higher salaries. In fact, the positives are hard to ignore. According to a Bloomberg study from 2019, if women received greater access to flexible working arrangements, in addition to childcare and secondary education, they could add as much as $20 trillion to the global economy.

Reindorp agrees. “Young women should have all options available to them and should be valued and supported to thrive in whatever role they do. Whether it’s part time work to fit around their lives, childcare or working in a sector that they love and want to progress in. None of these choices are more or less valid. What’s key is that young women have genuine options, are supported regardless, and paid fairly for their work.”

Young Women’s Trust have also created a guide to help employers support young women. “Employers need to have transparent pay scales, pay the Real Living Wage for everyone, and make sure that processes are in place to report discrimination,” says Reindorp. “We want to remove gender-based restrictions and stereotypes, support young women in their life choices and then pay them fairly too. To create an equal world of work and raise young women’s incomes full stop.”

Power up tips: Ways to smash workplace stereotypes

Find a mentor

A mentor, especially a female mentor, can be enormously useful in helping young women develop leadership skills and practical abilities to advocate for themselves in the workplace. The value is clear at any point in a young woman’s path – studies have shown that students with female mentors experienced a greater sense of belonging, motivation and confidence, and were more likely to remain in the field. Employers are well-placed to offer internal mentoring opportunities and to monitor the development of young women to assess the impact of these networks, so it’s worth exploring this with your manager or HR team. But you don’t need to hold out for a formal mentoring program – reaching out to an experienced woman at work and exploring the potential of mentorship and guidance is a good place to start.

Connect with colleagues

From D&I committees, to LGBTQ+ networks and working parents groups, workplace networks provide a safe place to raise issues around discrimination and make positive change. So join one that best represents you. Employers can help by setting up networks aimed specifically at supporting young women in the workplace. “Young women have told us that they would like to see organisations establishing networks of young women; encouraging colleagues to be a cheerleader for them; and making sure that people call out any incidences where young women are spoken over or end up taking on more of the non-promotable and administrative tasks,” says Reindorp.

Consult a coach

Many employers offer some form of workplace coaching, whether that’s support from members of the HR team, sessions with external coaches, or confidential support with work-related stress or anxiety, so find out what’s available. “At Young Women’s Trust, we provide coaching to help young women navigate the world of work, whether that be moving into a different job, getting promoted, or dealing with difficult situations at work,” says Reindorp. “We’re also campaigning for equality at work and want more young women to raise their hands to be involved. We’re supporting young women to have more visibility and influence, whether that be in the workplace or government, so we can create change together.”

Galaxy® is committed to help one million people, including women, their families and communities thrive by 2030 via its ‘Your Pleasure Has Promise’ manifesto and vital initiatives including the Women for Change programme in collaboration with CARE and their How to Thrive series in partnership with Young Women’s Trust. Click here to find out more