Gender and headship in the twenty-first century

Career breaks

Most of the heads seem to have had the expected progression through middle
management to senior management roles, but a career break is a feature of many
female careers, most often related to child bearing and child-care.

Of women secondary heads 40 per cent, and of women primary heads 63 per cent
have had a break, the most common reason being maternity leave, although over a
quarter of the primary women heads had taken off a longer period for child care (see
Table 6). Relatively few other reasons for career break were given, although eight
per cent of men primary school heads (against three per cent of women primary
heads) had taken a secondment to obtain qualifications.

Breaks for longer term childcare were more common with the older age groups of
women but are considerably less common in 2004 than was reported in the 1990s. A
small change in life style is indicated by travel occurring as a reason for a career
break (three per cent of secondary women heads), something that was not
mentioned in the 1990s.

Table 6: Career break reasons

In the majority of cases women and men said that they were able to come back at
the same level after their career break, but there was a considerable difference in the
experience of men and women. Twelve per cent of secondary women and 18 per
cent of primary women said they were not able to return at the same level, and this
was only true for three or four per cent of the men.

Career breaks and the return to work are of vital significance to a large proportion of
women and have a considerable impact on their career progress. Some related
issues are discussed in the later section on maternity and paternity leave.

Career planning

One of the factors that have been identified in the past as being problematic for
women in relation to leadership is career planning and this is often linked to a lack of
confidence (see next section). The difficulties for women in planning their career are
compounded by child-bearing, and by the tacit acceptance in much of society that the
career of the man (husband) takes priority over that of the woman. The particular
experience of the women headteachers in relation to children and husbands is
considered later. However, the women and men headteachers were asked at what
stage of their lives they had formulated a career plan that included headship or
deputy headship. In the case of both men and women the most common time was
on gaining a post of responsibility. Over 23 per cent of the secondary women heads

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