Damning home working report finds fathers are progressing at the expense of mothers

Born out of a realization that men are being promoted even as women are professionally regressing, the damning report highlights how it is mothers who are most likely to have lost or left their job since the onset of the pandemic. The project also found that those women who remain employed are more likely to work from home and shoulder a heavier burden of day-to-day tasks than their male colleagues.

Berlin Cameron and Kantar have teamed up with the membership-based career platform Luminary and data provider Action Button to redress the imbalance. Together the partners have drilled into the societal shifts precipitated by the pandemic, principally around the diverging impact on the mental health of mothers and fathers.

Stress is up across the board

• Work was the main source of stress among parents of both sexes, but it is mothers who bear the brunt of childcare and at-home schooling who feel it most, with 18% citing employment as their biggest stressor.

• In unsettled times, unsurprisingly mothers and fathers share concerns over job security, with 28% worried about having stalled in their careers during the lockdown.