Survey: Work environment remains difficult for working mothers

Working mothers hold negative attitude toward the possibility of promotion and even toward their jobs, according to a recent report by Zhaopin, an online recruitment platform headquartered in Beijing.

The survey is based on 8,700-plus effective questionnaires collected.

According to the report, the working environment for women remains unfriendly, especially for working mothers and married women without children.

About 39.5 percent of surveyed working mothers did not expect promotion, while the proportion with married women without children reached as high as 40.6 percent.

However, single women were still confident in their future career as only 30.4 percent of surveyed single females said they had no hope of being promoted.

Barriers stopping working mothers from higher positions varied although the biggest reason cited was spending time with family and children, the report said.

According to the report, working mother spent 3.17 hours dealing with family matters, much higher than the single women who spent 1.92 hours and married women without children who spent 2.68 hours. About 43 percent of surveyed working mother said they had to spent time taking care of the family members, thus distracting them from the job.

Moreover, facilities for working mothers, such as baby care rooms, still lag behind, the report said.

Data cited from the report shows that only 8.22 percent of companies surveyed had baby care rooms while 40 percent of working mother complained that they didn’t even have maternity leave.

Guo Sheng, chief executive officer with Zhaopin, said problems such as expensive child-raising costs and lack of facilities for working mothers are exacerbating the problem, requiring both the government and employees to take active measures to help relieve the financial and psychological burdens on working mothers.