Close the Gap and Save the Children Scotland launch landmark report on young mothers’ labour market inequality

Young mothers are ambitious, capable, and determined but must navigate systems that constrain their choices.  

Despite being at the sharp end of women’s labour market inequality, child poverty, financial insecurity, and unequal caring responsibilities, there is a widespread lack of data on young mothers’ employment. This lack of data compounds their relative invisibility in policymaking, employer practice, and conversations about fair work, employment, and economic policy. New research by Close the Gap and Save the Children Scotland seeks to address this gap.  

This research forms part of our wider partnership project Fair Work for Young Mothers, which is funded by The Robertson Trust. We have worked closely throughout the project with our Research and Campaign Advisers, a group of eight young mothers whose lived experience has been invaluable in guiding the research design and framing the findings. Their involvement has kept young mothers’ voices, strengths, and expertise at the centre of both the research and the change it calls for. 

Our newly launched report, Strengths not Stigma: Research on fair work for young mothers, draws on labour market data, a literature review, semi-structured interviews with 32 young mothers, and an online survey of Scottish employers. Together, this evidence provides insight into young mothers’ experiences of the Scottish labour market. The report shows that structural barriers constrain young mothers’ choices, and that their experiences must be central to action on child poverty, gender equality, and fair work. 

Young mothers experience higher levels of poverty and poorer labour market outcomes 

Young motherhood in Scotland is closely linked to wider patterns of socioeconomic inequality. Women in the most deprived areas are almost five times as likely to have their first child between the ages of 16 and 24. Young mothers face some of the highest poverty rates of any Scottish Government priority family group, with 55% experiencing poverty. Of young mothers in employment, 42% experience in-work poverty. 

Entering a labour market already characterised by gender segregation and low pay, young women are concentrated in caring, service, administrative, and sales roles, and are considerably more likely than young men to be ‘economically inactive’ due to doing unpaid care for children and adults. These inequalities are often intensified by young motherhood, contributing to lower employment rates and reduced earnings. 

Young mothers are ambitious and motivated, but systems are failing them 

Participants described work and learning as routes to financial security, independence, confidence, and better futures for themselves and their children. 

One interview participant said: “I think I’m a good example for my child, do you know what I mean? He’s going to be like…my mummy works hard for this.” 

Young mothers’ decisions about paid work are shaped by the interaction between caring responsibilities and wider structural inequalities, including low pay, occupational segregation, inflexible working patterns, pregnancy and maternity discrimination, poverty, and inadequate childcare provision. 

The research findings shift the focus away from asking why young mothers are not participating more in the labour market, and towards a more important question: why do so many of Scotland’s systems continue to make that participation so difficult? 

Systems constrain young mothers’ choices 

A key finding of the research is that young mothers’ experiences of paid work cannot be understood through any single issue. While childcare emerged as a significant challenge, especially for those with disabled children or children with additional support needs, it rarely operated in isolation. Instead, the research shows how interconnected systems shape young mothers’ ability to access, sustain, and progress in employment. 

For many young mothers, decisions around paid work were rarely experienced as straightforward choices. Rather, they involved difficult trade-offs: balancing earning with caring, navigating tension between flexibility and progression, and weighing immediate financial security against longer-term career development. 

One interview participant said: “It makes me feel like – oh my God – this is just an impossible situation…There’s too much expected, people, society, and employers forget that being a parent is a full-time job already…young mums are expected to have two full-time jobs.” 

The findings suggest that young mothers’ labour market inequality is caused by the cumulative effect of connected systems that remain poorly aligned with the realities of young motherhood. 

Some young mothers face even greater barriers 

Another clear finding is that there is no singular experience of young motherhood. While common themes emerged, barriers were often intensified for: 

• Lone mothers 
• Disabled young mothers 
• Care experienced young mothers 
• Racially minoritised and migrant young mothers 
• Young mothers with experience of domestic abuse 
• Young mothers of disabled children or children with additional support needs. 

For many participants, labour market inequality intersected with wider experiences of poverty, trauma, poor health, unpaid care, housing insecurity, and limited support networks.  

The research reinforces the importance of an intersectional approach to fair work and anti-poverty policy. Effective solutions must recognise how age, gender, and motherhood combine with wider structural inequalities to shape young mothers’ outcomes. 

Employers value young mothers in principle, but bias clearly remains 

Many employers expressed broadly positive views of young mothers, describing them as hardworking, reliable, and committed. Employers also recognised the importance of flexible working in supporting staff retention. Larger employers were generally more likely to hold positive views, while smaller employers more often demonstrated concerns about supporting young mothers in the workplace. 

Generally positive views coexisted with assumptions about young mothers’ capability and career focus. More than a quarter of respondents saw hiring a young mother as “risky” for the business. Around half of respondents also identified flexible working arrangements as an operational challenge and did not see young mothers as comparable to other employees across workplace attributes such as ambition, productivity, and career focus. 

The survey findings highlight the persistence of employers’ gendered assumptions about young mothers’ caregiving responsibilities detracting from their ability and commitment to paid work – this assumption was not equally applied to young fathers, or to fathers in general.  

The solutions are clear, now comes delivery 

Strengths not Stigma is a starting point for action. It shows that young mothers are experts in their own lives, with strengths, hopes, and ambitions that policy and practice should recognise and support. 

The report makes a range of recommendations designed to support coordinated action from government, employers, and trade unions to address the systems that constrain young mothers’ choices. They focus on centring young mothers in child poverty, fair work, childcare, employability, education, and equality policy; expanding affordable, flexible, and inclusive childcare; reducing financial risk when entering paid work or learning; and strengthening intersectional data gathering and accountability.  

They also call for employers to turn positive attitudes into fair workplace practices through secure hours, the Real Living Wage, genuine flexibility, inclusive recruitment, protection from discrimination, support for caring responsibilities, support for staff experiencing forms of violence against women, and workplace cultures that challenge stigma and assumptions about young mothers’ ambition or reliability.  

Trade unions also have a key role in supporting young mothers to understand and exercise their rights, and in making fair work for young mothers a bargaining priority. 

Addressing the barriers which prevent young mothers from accessing, sustaining, and progressing in fair work is not a niche concern. It is central to Scotland’s ambitions on child poverty, gender equality, fair work, and economic justice. Now government, employers, and trade unions must deliver. 

Read the Strengths not Stigma full report and summary report.