DEI Training Should Include Motherhood

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, known as DEI or DE&I, is a welcome development in workplace culture. DEI is the moniker under which workplaces try to embrace the entire workforce and to attract and retain talent. DEI is more about the workplace culture than it is roles or jobs performed. Essential to DEI program success is that DEI initiatives must come from the top down. Similarly, persons of diverse backgrounds and cultural groups should sit in decision making spots for DEI programs and departments to actually succeed at creating inclusive workplace cultures. DEI goes a long way in giving voice to marginalized groups and microcultures inside an organization.

As described by InStride (April, 2021), “Diversity, equity and inclusion training helps employees at all levels and in all departments to better work with colleagues of differing identities and backgrounds. It aims to build awareness and skills which support marginalized employees and help to cultivate a safe, compassionate, and equitable office culture where everyone feels valued.” The Nonprofit Leadership Center of Tampa describes DEI like a high school dance (Johnson, 2021). 

When it comes to diversity and inclusion, imagine being at a high school dance. Diversity is making sure everyone is invited to the event, while inclusion is asking the people there who are different from them to actually dance. In the workplace, we often see people of color, women, or those with disabilities invited to the planning table (that’s diversity). But they don’t always have a voice. Inclusion is inviting those voices in, valuing them and ensuring they shape a strategy or plan.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are important features of the modern and future workplaces. And it is becoming evermore apparent that companies that “organizations at large also benefit from DEI,” (InStride, 2021). Here are just a few advantages, according to InStride, to organizations as a result of DEI:

"Organizations with high employee engagement resulting from improved DEI can be up to 21 percent more profitable than comparable organizations without. Plus, DEI also reduces occurrences of workplace harassment, which is a problem that costs businesses $7.6 million dollars a year. Another statistic from Global Diversity Practice shows how more diverse organizations lead industry innovation, as diverse teams make better decisions 87 percent of the time" (InStride, 2021).

What Good Is DEI?

DEI sounds like a win-win, but what good is DEI if it doesn’t include the culture of motherhood? What good is DEI if it fails to see the motherhood experience as increasing diversity of experience, rather than outside the traditional employee mold? What good is DEI if it doesn’t channel equity efforts to include women caring for children? Not much.

DEI, set up to advocate for LGBT and racially and ethnically diverse populations all have motherhood in common. And even if individuals within those groups are not mothers, it is likely they will become a caregiver to a family member at some point in their work-life. The act of raising a child is the most common “diverse” experience, occurring across the spectrum of human experience, and yet it seems, motherhood sits in the blindspot of DEI departments.

Mothers are Black, Asian, Gay, Indian, Transgender, Latina, and Lesbian among other racial, ethnic and religious groups, as well as white, or heteronormative. What’s more, individuals from diverse cultural groups who are mothers experience even more bias and disadvantages than white women. This is what Reshma Saujani, author of Pay Up calls a “double whammy bias.” Indeed. Black mothers, for example, face possible discrimination on three fronts: her skin color, her gender, and now, her status as a mom. For this reason, DEI programs and training must include mothers.

However, if DEI programs are another way to develop diverse populations to the exclusion of mothers, then DEI will reinforce the reality for working moms everywhere — that motherhood is a “personal and professional inconvenience, instead of the foundation on which society rests” (Saujani, 2022). This will continue to frustrate women, squash opportunities, and ultimately impact their ability to feed their families.

According to the National LGBTQ Workers Center, 4.5% of the US population is LGBT. That’s approximately 11 million people. Of those 11 million, 88% of them are employed. (National LGBTQ Workers Center, n.d.). Of those LGBT persons, the Williams Institute at UCLA estimated in 2016 that approximately 114,000 same sex couples are raising children (Williams Institute, 2018). Truly, LGBT employees are a minority and deserve protection and a voice in decision making for an organization. By contrast, it’s amazing to think the best companies expend considerable resources on DEI departments, initiatives and programs for a small percentage of their workforce. Now, 4.5% is not an equal distribution of employees as some locations or industries may have higher populations of LGBT employees and those programs need to be even more robust. Also, it’s important to remember that DEI programs cannot be designed around stereotypes of LGBT employees but should reflect the real values and concerns of the employees within the organization.

Mothers make up a larger percentage of the workforce than LGBT persons and yet, there is no alliance for departments that exclusively establishes a voice or outreach to these working mothers. According to the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2021 there were 83.2 million families in the US. Of those, 32.8 million families had children under the age of 18. Also, “The labor force participation rate—the percent of the population working or looking for work—for all mothers with children under age 18 was 71.2 percent in 2021. The participation rate for fathers with children under age 18, [was] 92.5 percent in 2021” (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). In 2021, BLS shows 62,258,000 persons with children under the age of 18 years in the US. with over 80% of them as part of the labor force (combined women and men). Clearly mothers and fathers need the kind of inclusivity as parents, that DEI programs in the workplace can provide.

Why Include Mothers?

Why should motherhood, if it’s so common, be included in the diversity category? Because motherhood creates a vulnerability for the woman (especially) that she cannot be expected to ignore just because it’s business hours. Professor Stewart Friedman of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project says, “The closer you are to a diaper in your work, the less valued you are and the less pay you get — on both ends of the age distribution, whether it’s caring for infants or the dying. You face obstacles in terms of every important resource you need to thrive. And that’s why it’s wrong. … We’re done if we can’t take care of the most needy” (Saujani, 2022). Vulnerability is the hallmark of diversity; marginalization necessitates training in workplaces to ensure inclusion of non-traditional workplace experiences.

DEI programs aim to ensure that an employee feels s/he is not going to be penalized or persecuted at work for their sexual orientation or gender identity. DEI trainings also aim to ensure that managers and executives know that an employee should not face penalties for what is seen as “other” cultures. For example, if a Muslim woman didn’t partake in a lunch meeting, because she was observing Ramadan, she should not be punished, or made to feel odd for this. Similarly, if she had to miss the lunch meeting because her suddenly sick child needed to be picked up from school, this need should also be accommodated. When employees are free to be their full selves in the office, research shows increased dedication to the work, the organization and more engagement overall. To champion the call for diversity, equity and inclusion, Saujani says, “A study released in 2019 by Accenture drew a direct line between equality and innovation, reporting that innovation is six times higher at organizations with more equal workplace cultures.” (Saujani, 2022).

Further, according to Maven, Black, Latina, and Asian employees are most likely to be working parents. Beyond motherhood, these ethnic groups have higher percentages of parents: “60% of Black employees, 56% of Latinx employees, and 57% of Asian employees are parents, along with 50% of white parents” (Maven, 2021). There’s no getting around the ubiquitous nature of parenthood. But more to the point, the vulnerability to bias and punitive measures is borne by the mother because she is the primary caregiver.

Recruiting Unicorns

As demonstrated by the percentages above, looking for an employee who is unencumbered by family or caregiving responsibilities is like recruiting unicorns. Jobs and workplace cultures designed for unencumbered or non-caregivers is part of the cause of current staffing shortages. Non-parents and non-caregivers already have jobs. The ones who need jobs are the parents, and especially mothers. Further they need accommodation to be included up and down the hierarchy of organizations. DEI must include mothers, and when it does everyone with caregiving responsibilities will benefit.

I’m not going to spend much time talking about employees who are also caregiving for an aging parent or special-needs family member who isn’t a child. The following data come from the Family Caregiver Alliance, showing that caregiving is pervasive among women, implying that further protecting mothers helps women of all ages.

• An estimated 66% of caregivers are female. 

• The average caregiver is a 49 year old woman who works outside the home and provides 20 hours per week of unpaid care to her mother.

• Although men also provide assistance, female caregivers may spend as much as 50% more time providing care than male caregivers.

• In total, the cost impact of caregiving on the individual female caregiver in terms of lost wages and Social Security benefits equals $324,044. (Family Caregiver Alliance, 2022)

The point is mothers (and caregivers, especially those who are female) are not a small minority population. If anything, they are a power minority, underrepresented in the conference rooms and C-Suites of leadership in organizations. If organizations accommodate LGBT and racial diversity (of which many of those employees are also parents or caregiving a family member), then DEI should also include programs and initiatives for mothers, motherhood and those parents who are the (primary and secondary) caregivers.

According to InStride, some of the most common topics addressed in DEI training are: “unconscious and implicit bias, stereotyping, reducing prejudice, cultural awareness and belonging, addressing microaggressions, anti-harassment” (InStride, 2021). Because of this type of training, DEI is the ideal locus in workplace culture to situate raising awareness about the struggles motherhood places on working mothers. Reducing bias both unconscious and implicit is essential. Educating on the real struggles of moms in order to overcome stereotypes, and reducing predjudice, microaggressions and outright harassment requires training. DEI training is equipped to handle this culturally based makeover.  

"Anti-mom bias is one of the biggest open secrets in the workplace. Every woman who has children has either experienced it or knows someone who has" (Saujani, 2022). Where else does anti-mom bias manifest itself?

"… working moms are confronted with another gender bias known as the 'maternal wall.' Just like it sounds, this wall appears in front of right at the point they have children. The maternal wall bias shows up in ways obvious and subtle, from microaggressions to poor performance evaluations to being passed over for jobs, assignments, or promotions. McKinsey notes that in 2021 women of color were particularly prone to being subjected to disrespectful or 'othering' behaviors like these, creating a double whammy bias. Some women are involuntarily nudged into lower-visibility, lower-reward positions, a phenomenon known as 'downshifting.'" (Saujani, 2022).

 If DEI does the inclusion work in its name, then it MUST include mothers. Managers, employees, and executives must all be trained to avoid these biases whether consciously or unconsciously applied to mothers. The workplace culture, including the people inside the organization, must be made over to work WITH mothers and those in caregiving roles to minimize the cultural clashes of motherhood and the workplace.

References

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2022, April 20). Employment characteristics of families — 2021. United States Department of Labor.  https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/famee.pdf

Family Caregiver Alliance. (2022). Women and caregiving: Facts and figures. https://www.caregiver.org/resource/women-and-caregiving-facts-and-figures/

Goldberg, S. & Conron, K. (2018, July). How many same-sex couples in the US are raising children? UCLA School of Law, Williams Institute. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/same-sex-parents-us/

InStride. (2021, April 1). 8 types of diversity, equity and inclusion training to implement within your organization. https://www.instride.com/insights/diversity-inclusion-training/

Johnson, C. (2021, February 22). Leaders who authentically embrace diversity, equity, & inclusion believe these 8 things. Nonprofit Leadership Center of Tampa. https://nlctb.org/tips/inclusive-leadership/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw6pOTBhCTARIsAHF23fJYeOE6MXO1dGF2liT-Z2O7qU9-M9rBPw1KFVUIYEoZaEKNo254zV4aAnoIEALw_wcB

Maven. (2021). Why investing in parents as part of your Diversity, Equity & Inclusion strategy is better for business. Maven. https://www.mavenclinic.com/post/parents-diversity-equity-inclusion-strategy-four-statistics-burnout-support

National LGBTQ Workers Center. (n.d.) LGBT people in the workplace: Demographics, experiences, and pathways to equity [infographic]. https://www.lgbtmap.org/file/LGBT-Workers-3-Pager-FINAL.pdf

Saujani, R. (2022). Pay up: The future of women and work (and why it’s different than you think). One Signal Publishers.

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