“As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home,” Sheryl Sandberg wrote in Lean In in 2013. More than a decade later, the observation still cuts to the heart of the gender-equality debate for women in business. If power at work is ever going to shift, the division of labour at home has to shift too. Yet the latest UK figures show that change remains stubbornly slow.

According to the ONS Time Use Survey 2023, published in 2024, women in the UK spent an average of one hour and 46 minutes a day on unpaid household work and childcare, while men spent one hour and seven minutes. The gap is narrower than it was in the 1970s, but it has not disappeared, and in households with children it widens again. For self-employed women and founders, that unpaid load sits on top of client work, tax admin and business development.

It is not simply a question of splitting the chores. Sandberg’s central argument is that women are judged more harshly when their behaviour does not match traditional gender stereotypes. Research consistently shows that when women negotiate hard it can backfire, while men using identical tactics are seen as assertive and competent. Powerful women are expected to be likeable; men are rarely held to that same standard.

Those double standards are just as powerful at home. Female founders, directors and managers are still expected to keep home and family running smoothly, even when business is booming. Even if that pressure is not coming from a partner or children, wider social expectations are hard to escape. If the house is untidy, a school appointment is missed or a family birthday is forgotten, the disapproval still lands disproportionately on women.

The “do it all” myth

For most women in business, “having it all” still too often means “doing it all”. Many manage this balance brilliantly, but usually at significant personal cost. In that sense, Lean In is a digital-age companion to Shirley Conran’s 1970s bestseller Superwoman. Both became “have it all/do it all” manuals: Sandberg focused on the boardroom, Conran on the domestic front. Both have been criticised for placing the burden of change on individual women rather than on the systems that hold them back.

There is some truth in that criticism. The barriers are real and they are structural. In April 2024, the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings found that the median hourly pay for full-time employees was 7.0% lower for women than for men. For all employees, including part-time workers, the gap was 13.1%. Women now hold 42.1% of FTSE 100 board seats, a record, yet they make up only 10% of FTSE 100 CEOs and 16% of chairs, according to the FTSE Women Leaders Review 2024. On executive committees, where day-to-day power sits, the figure is 34.3%. Female entrepreneurship is growing, but the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship 2024 found that only 20% of UK businesses are majority women-led, and women remain only half as likely as men to start a business.

Meanwhile, the UK has some of the highest childcare costs in the developed world. OECD data from 2023 show that a couple on average earnings with two children can spend 29% of their household income on childcare, compared with an OECD average of around 9%. Shared parental leave exists, but uptake remains low, and the default expectation that women will be the primary carers and primary household managers persists. Telling women simply to “lean in” harder does not fix a labour market and a care infrastructure designed around an outdated male-breadwinner model.

What the 2026 rules change for women in business

Some policy shifts are starting to catch up. The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023, which took effect in April 2024, gives employees the right to request flexible working from day one of a job, rather than after 26 weeks. The Employment Rights Bill 2024-25 is expected to strengthen those rights further and could make flexible working the default for many roles.

For founders, the Free Childcare Self Employed UK: The 30-Hour Offer Explained guide sets out how the expanded 30-hour childcare offer works for self-employed parents. The rules are complex, and eligibility depends on income and working hours, so it is worth checking rather than assuming you qualify.

Practical ways to share the load

None of this means individual tactics are useless. Small, practical changes can protect your time, energy and ambition while the bigger battles for policy change continue. The trick is to use technology, support systems and clear agreements to reduce friction, not to pretend that one woman can do everything.

Plan travel and appointments in one place. Whether you are organising a family trip or a client visit, use a single shared calendar and independent review sites to compare options before booking. Shared calendars also help partners see who is covering school runs, appointments and deadlines, making invisible labour visible.

Automate routine purchases. Set up subscriptions or delivery slots for household essentials so you are not the only person responsible for remembering milk, loo roll or dog food. The mental load matters as much as the physical load.

Outsource and delegate. You do not have to cook from scratch every night, clean every surface yourself or manage every invoice personally. Meal-delivery services, cleaners, bookkeepers and virtual assistants are legitimate business expenses when they free you up to focus on revenue, strategy or rest. Our guide to allowable expenses for the self-employed explains what you can claim.

Build your network. Starting and growing a business is easier when you are not doing it alone. Prowess connects women in business with practical guides on women in business facts and trends, funding, tax and networking.

From individual fixes to systemic change

Conran and Sandberg both sparked important conversations, but neither offers a complete answer. “Fix the woman” advice can only go so far when the workplace, the economy and the home are still organised around old assumptions.

Real progress requires employers to offer genuinely flexible senior roles, transparent pay and progression, and affordable, high-quality childcare. It requires men to take parental leave, pick up the school run and own their share of the mental load. It requires more women in leadership, because diverse leadership teams are more likely to design policies that work for everyone. And it requires government to keep pressure on gender pay gap reporting and board diversity, not treat them as finished.

Helping women in business succeed in practical ways still matters. Every woman who starts a business, secures funding, negotiates a pay rise or reaches a boardroom makes the path easier for the next. But the goal is not to create a generation of “superwomen” who can do it all. It is to build a world where no one has to.

Action steps to share the load

• Audit your unpaid workload for one week and identify what you can delegate, automate or drop.
• Check your eligibility for the 30-hour childcare offer if you are self-employed.
• Review your business expenses to ensure you are claiming allowable costs for support services.
• If you employ staff, make sure your flexible working policy reflects the 2024 day-one right to request.
• Use your network to share practical shortcuts, not just business leads.