If Motherhood came with a salary it would be £31,216 according to research by Parragon
New research commissioned by Parragon Books reveals the price of motherhood in Britain in 2014.
Mums in the UK could earn an annual salary of over £30,000 if they were paid for the time spent doing family and household tasks. Quantifying the everyday tasks carried out by mums to the average wage a professional would be paid to carry out the same roles could see mums earning £31,216.
Did you know?
• A mother’s work is never done – The average working week for mums in the UK is nearly 88 hours and mums only take 3.5 days off from family chores a year
• Sleepless nights – A quarter of Mums wake in the night worrying about their to-do list
• Working more than 9 till 5 – Over a quarter (27%) of mums are the first up, last to bed
• Mums know best – Over half (53%) of mums voted their own mothers the most helpful family member after their partners, closely followed by their mother-in-laws (33%)
• Publisher Parragon Books have launched The Bonnie Marcus Collection in the UK, a new lifestyle range of books and journals for fashionable multi-tasking women of all ages
LONDON, UK – April 2014: Today, research commissioned by Parragon Books to coincide with the launch of the Bonnie Marcus Collection reveals the price of motherhood in Britain in 2014. Mums in the UK could earn an annual salary of over £30,000 if they were paid for the time spent doing family and household tasks. Quantifying the everyday tasks carried out by mums to the average wage a professional would be paid to carry out the same roles could see mums earning £31,216.
In the study of 2,000 British mothers, over 16 family and household duties were categorised into 6 job roles: Cook, Cleaner, Handyman, Personal Assistant, Childcare and Taxi Driver. Participants were asked to state the amount of time spent performing these duties and this was compared to the average hourly wage of such roles.
|
Role
|
Weekly Hours Spent
|
Weekly Wage
|
|
Childcare
|
16.52
|
£110.66
|
|
Cleaner
|
15.25
|
£164.24
|
|
Cook
|
12.86
|
£150.53
|
|
Personal Assistant
|
8.65
|
£119.80
|
|
Taxi Driver
|
4.63
|
£28.49
|
|
Handyman
|
3.13
|
£26.58
|
|
TOTAL
|
61.04
|
£600.31
|
|
Estimated Annual Salary of a ‘Mother’ : £31,216
|
||
Childcare came out as the most time intensive role for mums, taking up over 16.5 hours a week completing tasks such as getting children ready for school, getting children ready for bed and helping them with homework. The research found that time spent as a cleaner for the family and household is the second most time consuming task and could see mums in the UK pocket £164.24 week on average if paid an hourly wage of £10.77.
The average British mum is also holding down paid employment of 26.9 hours a week, meaning that in total the working week for mums in the UK is nearly 88 hours. Over a third (35%) of the mums surveyed agreed that looking after children is harder than a full-time job and over half (57%) believe having children has helped improve their multi-tasking skills.
With lives going beyond the traditional 9 till 5, mums in the UK are waking up on average at 6.46am in preparation of their first family duties, which begin just 36 minutes later at 7.22am. Taking less than half an hour for lunch (25 minutes), hardworking mums don’t get a chance to switch off from work until 7.43pm. Over a quarter of mums (27%) claim that in their household, they are the first one up in the morning and last one to go to bed. This pattern continues throughout the year, as the average numbers of days ‘annual holiday’ from family chores is 3.5.
Although they may not be working in the evenings after the children have gone to bed, over four out of ten (43%) of the nation’s mums still plan all the jobs they need to do the next day before going to bed. Almost a third (30%) worry they are not going to be able to do everything they need to, resulting in a quarter (25%) of mums often waking up in the night worried about their to-do list. However, 24 hour supermarkets are a secret weapon for many mums in the UK – nearly one in eight (13%) rely on scheduling a shopping visit at any time of the day or night.
Creator of Parragon Books’ The Bonnie Marcus Collection and busy mum-of-three, Bonnie Marcus commented, “This study shows that a mother’s work is never done and working long hours is the norm. Multi-tasking mothers form the backbone of the nation, both at home and in the workplace. In my range of stylish stationery, the Mum’s Everyday Essential Planner was designed especially with the busy working mum in mind.”
The research was commissioned to celebrate the UK launch of The Bonnie Marcus Collection. The range, which includes beautifully designed and illustrated pocket puzzle books, notebooks, organisers, food journals and cookbooks, hopes to help and inspire busy women across the UK.
For more information on The Bonnie Marcus Collection visit www.parragon.com.
This is not a sponsored post. I was provided with this information by Parragon and thought it would be of interest to my blog readers. I have not been paid nor have I received any type of compensation for this post.
7 Comments
rachel @ activities4kidz
April 3, 2014 at 7:13 am
Its scary isn't it? And to think society often places no value on sahm mums!!
emma tustian
April 3, 2014 at 8:51 am
Maybe I should show my husband this. He laughs when I say I work full time (I do full time 35 hours a week work), but he doesn't seem to notice the food I cook, the (admittedly not as frequent as he'd like) cleaning, travelling around, shopping, stuff I do in the morning and evening, picking up and dropping off. Must beat his 7 days a week farm working.
Katie Clark
April 4, 2014 at 8:37 am
Thanks so much for sharing this. Mums are so often considered as having the easy job – sitting at home doing nothing and it's so far from the truth, it's almost unbelievable! Don't get me wrong, it's rewarding and I wouldn't have it any other way but still…. #binkylinky
BakedPotatoMummy
April 4, 2014 at 9:16 am
Love this. I know that my husband really doesn't consider what I do equivalent to a job, even though it's full time and with out his help. Maybe I should show him this!
Thanks for hosting #BinkyLinky
AliceMegan
April 4, 2014 at 2:10 pm
It's unbelievable but a mummys work is never done
AliceMegan
Nicola Johnston
April 5, 2014 at 7:50 am
This is a great post! We all know a mummy's work is never done, but I never thought about it in money terms!
Lucie Aiston
April 11, 2014 at 11:39 am
This is a fabulous post and feel I should be showing it to a few people!!! Personally I think it should be double that 😉 xx