Tanuja Chandra, one of Indian cinema’s first woman directors, shared an anecdote about her recent film’s premier event. She was standing for a photo with Anupama Chopra and Pooja Bhatt, when the photographer asked them to “smile the same way.” While it may sound harmless, this moment reflects the subtle yet persistent way women are told how to look, behave, and fit into expectations — both in society and at work.
In many cultures across India, new mothers are showered with care and attention during and after childbirth. Families and communities gather to support them — friends drop by to help with chores, relatives prepare nourishing foods, and elders ensure that the mother rests and recovers. Traditional medicine systems like Ayurveda recommend specific postnatal diets and massages, focusing on both physical and emotional wellbeing. This collective support system recognizes that childbirth is not only a medical event but also a deeply human experience that requires empathy, time, and care.
The support gap for new moms
However, while the cultural ecosystem around a new mother is designed to nurture, the workplace ecosystem often does the opposite. Once maternity leave ends, women are expected to return to work as though nothing has changed, as though motherhood exists in a separate bubble, disconnected from their professional lives.
A 2018 study by Ashoka University reported that nearly 48% of women left their jobs within four months of rejoining after maternity leave. That is almost half of returning mothers — a staggering figure that reflects not a lack of commitment from women, but a lack of support from workplaces.
Fast forward to 2023, and a report by OfExperiences, a women’s platform, found that two of the most significant challenges women face while rejoining after maternity leave are the absence of flexible work options and bias within the organisation. Women often find themselves placed on slower career tracks, overlooked for leadership opportunities, or subtly penalized for prioritizing family responsibilities.
This phenomenon, known globally as the “motherhood penalty,” refers to the systemic disadvantages mothers face in pay, perceived competence, and career progression compared to their male or childless counterparts.
The Myth of the “Ideal Worker”
At the root of this problem lies the outdated notion of the ideal worker — someone who is fully available, uninterrupted, and able to dedicate themselves entirely to the job. Historically, this ideal was modeled on male employees who had partners managing their homes and caregiving responsibilities.
In reality, modern workplaces still unconsciously cling to this archetype. When a woman becomes a mother, her perceived “availability” often drops in the eyes of her employer. Even if she performs at the same level as before, the assumption that she is “less ambitious” or “less reliable” begins to influence key decisions like project assignments or promotions.
Research by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org has repeatedly shown that working mothers face more microaggressions and higher attrition rates than women without children. The emotional and cognitive load of balancing caregiving and career responsibilities can also be immense, especially in environments that do not offer flexibility, empathy, or understanding.
Inclusion for new moms
Inclusion for new mothers doesn’t just mean having a maternity leave policy in place. It means building systems that make it possible for women to return, re-engage, and grow without penalty.
- Flexible Work Options: Flexible schedules, hybrid work arrangements, and job-sharing can go a long way in easing the transition back to work. Many global organisations have shown that flexibility improves productivity and retention for all employees, not just new mothers.
- Reorientation and Onboarding Support: Rejoining after months of leave can be daunting. Structured returnship programs — including skill refreshers, mentoring, and phased return-to-work options — help women reintegrate smoothly.
- Sensitisation and Manager Training: Bias often stems from a lack of awareness. Managers must be trained to evaluate performance fairly and avoid assumptions about commitment or capacity. Conversations around performance should focus on output, not hours logged.
- Childcare Support and Parental Benefits: Access to quality childcare through creches, stipends, or partnerships can ease one of the biggest barriers to continued employment. Similarly, extending parental leave to fathers encourages shared caregiving and challenges traditional gender roles.
- Building a Culture of Belonging: Policies alone don’t change cultures — people do. When peers and leaders openly support working parents, take parental leave themselves, and model work-life balance, it sends a powerful message of acceptance and respect.
A New Way Forward
The goal should not be to fit mothers back into an old system, but to reshape the system itself to be more human. The pandemic, for instance, proved that flexibility is not only possible but beneficial. Many women who dropped out of the workforce during that period did so not because they lacked talent, but because they lacked institutional support.
In India, organisations like Zomato and Tech Mahindra have introduced gender-neutral parental leave and structured return-to-work programs. Startups like Avtar and JobsForHer are creating employment opportunities specifically for women restarting their careers. These efforts are commendable but they need to become mainstream, not exceptional.
Conclusion
The journey from cultural care to corporate care requires empathy, innovation, and intent. Supporting new mothers in the workplace is not charity — it is sound business sense. Studies have shown that companies with higher gender diversity in leadership outperform those without it, and retaining experienced women post-maternity contributes directly to this pipeline.
Just as families rally around new mothers to ensure their wellbeing, workplaces too must evolve to provide that same sense of community and flexibility. Every organisation must ask itself: Are we building an environment where women can thrive, not despite motherhood, but alongside it?
Only when workplaces move from expectation to empowerment will they truly become inclusive.
Just as men, not all women can smile the same way. But there are certainly some strategies that can enable a company to retain working women across the board. Write to us at hello@serein.in to know how to effectively support parents working at your company.