A few months into juggling work and caring for two school-age children, a female finance executive based in Dublin narrowed her ambitions down to a single bullet point: “Just survival”.

“This has been the hardest time as a working mother,” she writes, responding to an FT callout asking women to share experiences of how pandemic life is affecting their career progress.

The pull in two directions between work and home is exacerbated by the lack of childminders and a cleaner. She describes feeling unsupported by senior colleagues who have a stay-at-home partner. “The word ‘understanding’ is not part of finance,” she says, adding that while “the policies are all there, beautifully written” the reality is “the work has to get done and to the same standard — period”.