If one of the 505 male MPs resigned for personal reasons it would hardly be worth a comment. However, with so few women in Parliament, Louise’s resignation has re-ignited the debate of ‘can women have it all?’.

On the other side of the pond, a similar debate recently was ignited by the frank confessions of Anne-Marie Slaughter, the first female Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State, who wrote about her struggles for work-life balance in the Atlantic.

Fellow WOB UK Director Claire Braund noted in her comment on Slaughter in The Australian Financial Review (5/7/2012) that rather than argue whether women (or men) ‘can have it all’, a better discussion might be how to change and adapt 19th and 20th century work policies and practices tothe 21st and 22nd centuries?

"If governments, businesses and communities wish to ensure people live valuable, meaningful and contributory lives, adding value to the economy and society AND procreating the next generations, then clearly ‘the system’ will need to change," she wrote.

In the UK we live a short distance from Europe and some of the world's most and least enlightened countries when it comes to participation of women in the workforce and on boards.

In Scandinavia it is well known that working and having children are viewed as part of the humdrum of people's normal lives and both are regarded as being essential to the economic and social wellbeing of the country. Their policies reflect this attitude.

Just over the ditch we have France with its excellent child and after-school-care options and one of the highest workforce female participation rates in the western world.

But alongside France, we have Germany where school finishes at 1pm, children come home for lunch and there is a virtual absence of any sort of after-school-care options, so participation of women in the workforce is very low.

Meanwhile, we would do well to take a look at emerging economies, such as Georgia and Thailand, which have more than 50% of their management roles occupied by women simply because their rate of growth is such that they need every available labour unit working.

In the UK, we are reasonably fortunate with our child and after-school-care systems. However while many companies have excellent policies for flexible work options, these are accessed mainly by women and can result in a stalled or slow tracked career. Men tend not to take up flexible work options as readily, I suspect not because they don’t want to, but because of the expectations of peers, colleagues and the general work environment.

Working in asset management I was fortunate because I had the support of a fantastic CEO who was determined to keep me post child birth. To ensure I stayed with the company he personally re-organised my client travel commitments so that I only needed to be overseas twice a year instead of four times a year. He also told me he would prefer it if I left the office at 4pm every day. The business needed client continuity and he knew that by supporting me for a few years he would keep the clients happy. I was rarely able to leave the office at 4pm every day but when I did take a few extra hours off, to see my children at important school events, I never worried about what others in the company thought as I knew I had the full support of senior management. fClaire Braund, in her article, also suggests another intervention we could make in the short term is to bring in a ‘father’s quota’ on the parental leave scheme. "Add six weeks paid leave to the scheme only if it is accessed by the other partner”. This proved to the game changer in Norway, ensuring men and women took time out of the workforce to take care of their equally important family responsibilities. This included Audun Lysbakken, the Norwegian minister of childhood, equality and social cohesion, who took four months' paternity leave after the birth of his daughter. Imagine that in the House of Commons!

This issue, as well as a host of related topics, will be discussed at Economist Conferences' Diversity Summit in December. Further information is available here »

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.