Career with child

There are still many voices that are convinced that a career with children is not possible. This way of thinking relates primarily to working mothers. Nevertheless, there are now some women who are proving the opposite and can be found in top management. One example is the current CEO of Ascom Holding AG and former SBB boss Jeannine Pilloud.

In our blog post this week, we look at the compatibility of family and career. We show different ways and look at the extent to which child and career can be reconciled.

In the past, it was common for the wife to stay at home to take care of the children and the household, while the husband worked a full-time job and brought home the money. Today, this model is still true for many families for sometimes different reasons. Nevertheless, the mindset has now changed and society is trying to work out a balance between men and women. Today, many fathers help out in the household and mothers with young children actively participate in the workforce. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the labor force participation rate of mothers who live in a partnership and whose youngest child is under 25 years old was 82.6% in 2020. However, the majority of these women are employed on a part-time basis and it is precisely this that many still see as a killer criterion for climbing the career ladder.

Sooner or later, every woman is confronted with the question of what her family planning looks like. It is still difficult for many people to imagine that a career is possible despite the desire to have children. However, there are women who do not want to give up either a career or children. There is no question that it is not always easy to reconcile both. Nevertheless, it is wrong to believe that children are an obstacle to a career and make professional success impossible for a mother.

Pregnant women are nevertheless expected to think about how things should continue for them professionally. You will be asked this question not only by your employer, but also by colleagues, friends and family. However, the fact that the birth of the child could also have an impact on the father's career is often not an issue at all - neither for the parents-to-be nor for the father's employer. Increasingly, however, fathers-to-be are also expressing the desire to see the child grow up.

There are now some families who "swim against the tide" with their family model. In these families, the father is a full-time dad and the mother earns the "bread and butter. However, this model is still rather unusual and the fathers receive one or two uncomprehending looks.

Which model a family finally chooses for itself is very individual and there is no "right or wrong". That's why it's enormously important that society accepts and supports all models. This starts with changing tables in men's toilets and ends with more flexible working hours. The latter, in particular, is essential for balancing family and career. In our blog post on the topic Gender Diversity we already discussed flexible working hours and wrote that companies still rely on a strong culture of presence, which makes flexible working and thus also the compatibility of child and career more difficult. Although the Corona pandemic and the resulting introduction of mandatory home offices have forced a rethink, it remains to be seen whether Swiss companies will continue to allow flexible and location-independent working in the future. Some large companies, such as Siemens, have already enabled home office for years. In the past, one day per week was common. Now, two to three days of mobile working per week have been defined as the global standard.

In conclusion, it can be said that children and careers are not fundamentally mutually exclusive. There are already good examples that show that it is possible. Nevertheless, there is still a need for greater social acceptance, more management positions in the job-sharing model, and support from companies so that children are no longer seen as an obstacle in career planning.