“Women working in finance can’t have it all, It’s time to be honest about that.” one woman, the institutional fund manager said, told a survey by Financial News
Her husband works full-time and to build a lasting and successful career she had to delegate much of their two children’s upbringing, she said.
The survey found that 13 per cent of respondents had chosen not to have children. Two thirds of those had done so for career reasons, traders being the greatest percentage.
One senior trader at an American bank in London said: “It became clear [early in my career] that balancing family life with the demands of my career wasn’t going to be possible.”
Tina Fordham, chief global political analyst at Citigroup, a mother of two and a campaigner on gender diversity issues in the City, said: “A lot of women have decided they can’t have it all. It’s a pity for those who might have wanted to [have children or get married] that they felt they couldn’t.”
The survey found that 60 per cent believed they could have it all, if they had a supportive partner. More than half believed that for a woman to get ahead, she must leave the running of the family to her partner. Ten per cent of senior respondents had stay-at-home partners, the survey found.
Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management and chairwoman of the Investment Association, said that it would have been impossible to have balanced her career and raising a family without the support of her husband, Richard. They have nine children and they decided that he would stay at home when the fourth was born.
Mrs Morrissey said: “One of the main motivations was we weren’t having much of a life. We didn’t feel like we had any time, consistently trying to be in two places at once.”
