Maternal Career Disruption: The critical factors influencing women’s return to the workplace and the effects of the length of disruption and activity of the woman during the disruption

The disruption of a woman’s career in order to care for children can have profound consequences. This research defines these consequences as the Maternal Career Disruption Effect. A quantitative study was carried out to answer three research questions that anchored this research in this newly named effect, using the theoretical lens of human capital theory: i) What were the critical factors affecting the decision to return to the workplace? ii) In what ways did the length of career interruption affect the women’s re-entry to the workforce? iii) In what ways did the activity during the career interruption affect the women’s re-entry to the workforce? The study focussed on women in the UK financial services sector and identified that short term and long term financial reasons were critical in the women’s decision to return to the workplace. Discussion also focussed on the effect of the maternal career disruption and saw the women’s human capital decrease as the length of career disruption increased and the human capital increase as the women’s activity increased during the career disruption.