For many ambitious women, something happens along the way to their career goals: children. With the first Irish survey of its kind confirming that mothers are at a disadvantage at work, will there be a change of attitude?

If you're a mother and a worker, does having children negatively affect your career? Until now, the answer has been based on personal experience and opinion. Women have long talked about "the glass ceiling", but a new study shows that it may actually be made of concrete.

Finally, we we have a realistic picture of how Irish women experience the workplace, thanks to the first research of its kind in Ireland, a survey seen exclusively by The Irish Times. The research was conducted by the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies at Trinity College Dublin, with the co-operation of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and was based on answers by 2,000 civil servants.

So, does having children hold a woman back? Yes. You will not progress as far up the ladder as women without children and, especially, not as far as men with children.

Of those surveyed, 60 per cent of men who aspire to the grades of assistant secretary or secretary general in the Civil Service are fathers. Of the women who aspire to reach the same grades, only 31 per cent are mothers, half as many compared to fathers. Looked at another way, two-thirds of women who are ambitious enough to reach the top don't have kids.

Even more striking is how 85 per cent of men at senior management grades (principal officer and above) have children, compared to 50 per cent of women at those grades.

"The presence of children would appear to have a significant relationship to the current grade status of the respondents," states Dr Maryann Valiulis, director of TCD's Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, who led the research, in her preliminary analysis of the results, which will be reported in full later this year. In other words, the higher a woman goes in her career, the less likely she is to have children. The question is: why?

Valiulis conducted her interviews in January this year, so her research couldn't be more fresh. In her analysis, there are two reasons why women are not rising in the civil service on an equal basis with men.

Firstly, women are perceived differently. As one middle-management interviewee, Joanne, stated: "It's a terrible thing that really successful women stand out in the crowd." Another, Kathy, said that, in the main, women and men probably acted the same, but are perceived differently.

Women who achieve leadership positions tend to be thought of us unfeminine and tougher than men when, in fact, Valiulis found, they are not less feminine nor are they tougher. Even women see female superiors in leadership roles as being different from other women, according to the study, even though the women at the highest grades don't themselves see their ways of relating to people as different.

"Their skills got them where they are," says Valiulis. "When you are used to taking orders from a man and you are getting orders from a woman, you tend to say 'who does she think she is?', when she has delivered those orders in the same way a man would. When the person giving the orders is a woman, it's just interpreted as being more harsh. Ambitious women are absolutely perceived negatively as unfeminine."

Secondly, most women, who cannot identify with female leaders and who also don't define themselves as ambitious, are happy to remain at a static level of achievement as long as their families are happy. If a promotion is offered in recognition of their achievements, they will consider it, but they will not actively plan their career paths 20 years ahead the way most men do.

Women, especially women with children, have lower aspirations than men, Valiulis found. Of those in the Civil Service who wanted to reach senior management level (principal officer grade and above), only 33.3 per cent were women. Of the female respondents, 47 per cent saw their greatest career aspiration to be assistant principal officer level (middle management) compared with 34 per cent of male respondents, meaning that two-thirds of men expected to progress higher still.

DO WOMEN SETTLE for lower status because they are unambitious? Valiulis's research found that, at the time of entering the Civil Service, women were actually more ambitious than men. One female civil servant in upper management said: "I very much believe you'll make it on your own merits - it doesn't matter if you're male or female. Maybe I'm innocent, maybe I'm wrong, but I've always been successful."

But something happens to women along the way: children. The Civil Service has some of the most generous parental leave arrangements and flexitime schemes in Ireland, but this isn't enough, Valiulis discovered. Even men felt held back if they proclaimed their parental status by taking leave. "I found serious resentment on my return," said one male respondent to the survey.

A female respondent said: "It was viewed many that people who took career breaks were less committed to the job."

Having one child may be manageable, having two is difficult, "but once you get to three, it's harder", according to Valiulis. "Just think of the amount of laundry . . . there is a price to be paid."

Some women were happy with that price. When asked "do you feel you have been a success?", a typical answer was: "I'm not at the highest grade I could be, but I'm content that my family is a success."

Valiulis herself doubts that maternity and parental leave can help mothers climb the ladder. "I don't think the answer is more and more maternity leave," she says. "It makes it extremely difficult for mothers to come back into the workforce."

The lack of childcare and after-school care that parents think they can trust is the real issue, she thinks. "We don't have childcare [in Ireland]. We don't have any Government funding for safe childcare facilities." What we have, she adds, is privatisation of childcare as a business, which "is elitist and costs more".

Apart from having children, women in the Civil Service were also stymied by having no clear idea of their career paths when they set out. Many did not see ambition as a positive thing, and did not think ahead even towards the next promotion. Two-thirds thought they'd never get above principal-officer grade. "Women are not good at blowing their own horn," Valiulis says.

But what is the answer? Women who reach the highest levels tend to have no children or only one child, and may have a househusband or paid help at home, but such arrangements are rare, according to Valiulis, who says: "The answer is that we don't know the answer."

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The research findings will be delivered next week at the Women and Ambition Conference at Trinity College Dublin on Mar 27, 28 and 29. The keynote speakers include Prof Michael Kimmel, Prof Nuria Chinchilla and distinguished visiting professor of philosophy and women's studies at Brandeis University, Prof Emeritus Linda R Hirshman.

Contact gender.studies@tcd.ie