One of the world's most recognizable professional social networking websites, LinkedIn, will be adding 'stay-at-home mum' and 'stay-at-home dad' as official job titles—a huge step for all the mums and dads out there who don't get enough credit!
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Legitimacy to be recognized
LinkedIn has decided to no longer exclude those who take time off to take care of their little ones by removing an old requirement that enforced job titles to be directly linked to an employer. By doing so, this will allow parents to explain, what can sometimes be, large gaps of time in the employment history on their CVs when trying to re-enter the already competitve job market.
It will also be beneficial in helping legitimize the labour that goes into being a stay-at-home parent as many employers do not qualify parent-duty as tangible work experience when compared to a salaried job.
The change to their rules was prompted after the job search website came under fire for not being inclusive enough to those who needed to take on parental responsibilities. Writer Heather Bolen explained:
Strikingly, there are zero pre-populated options on LinkedIn to identify maternity leave, parental leave, adoption leave, sick leave, bereavement leave, elderly care leave, or for long term injury/illness, education/re-training, volunteering, long term travel, a gap year, a sabbatical - or for a pandemic.
And added:
LinkedIn's silence is tantamount to a 'don't ask, don't tell policy,' in which employers and prospective employees dance around the topic of family, thereby preventing meaningful conversations about workplace policies that could better support the hiring, productivity, job satisfaction, and retention of employees who are also primary caretakers.
Mums spend 98 hours per week taking care of family
One study conducted by Welch's found that stay-at-home mums in particular worked an average of 98 hours per week. Participants in the study claimed to, on average, start their day at 6:23am and finish off all family related duties (including taking care of children, completing house chores, running errands, etc) at 8:31 pm totalling a 14 hour-long work day.
In response to the citicism received and the numerous research supporting the legitimization of parental duties, director of engineering Bef Ayenew said:
I wholeheartedly agree that we need to normalise employment gaps on the profile to help reframe hiring conversations.
