Latest news with #motherhoodPenalty
Irish Times
26-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
‘Being a mother can hold you back at work - my peers can stay later, go on work trips'
When it comes to working and having children, it's more difficult for women to climb to the top of their profession. From the gender pay and promotions gap , the childcare and domestic juggle and the women's health gap , many structural and societal barriers are put in the way. We all know some parents who've both made it professionally and seem to have it all figured out. But have they really or are they stressed out of their minds? Numerous research studies and books show that when women have children , they suffer a motherhood penalty at work: fewer promotions and hiring opportunities, lower salaries and a drop in their career trajectory compared to male counterparts and those without children. When men marry however, they start earning more and that's true at every age from 20 to 64, according to US data . Whether women have children or not, making it to the corner office is a huge challenge. In 2025 in Ireland, the two least likely roles for women to hold in senior management are CEO (6.2 per cent) and chairperson (2.5 per cent), according to Grant Thornton's annual Women in Business Report. There's hope though. Some roles such as chief human resources officer (48.8 per cent) and chief financial officer (43.8 per cent) are among those most commonly held by women in senior management in Ireland. READ MORE Sadly, more than one in seven (16.3 per cent) businesses had no women in senior management roles. [ Will part-time work or staying at home with children leave you poorer in old age? Here's what to do now Opens in new window ] This week I spoke to women in the tech and legal sectors, some of the best paid professions in the State, to see how they've tried to make motherhood and professional success more compatible. Women who work and have children are struggling Last week's National Women's Health Survey in the Irish Examiner found that a third of women say they cannot afford to have children or won't until they reach certain financial or career goals. Kids are expensive and it is understandable that women want to increase their financial stability, and their ability to take maternity leave or reduced hours, before making that choice one way or the other. And there's no doubt they are seeing that women who work and have kids are struggling. The many women I spoke to, who tried to continue working at a high level professionally after having two or more children, said career and family success requires strong organisational skills, a supportive partner, full-time flexible childcare and help from family, neighbours and friends along the way. Anecdotally, couples at the top of their professions who 'have it all' – at least from the outside – tend to have full-time minders or nannies who look after their young children and household tasks, including meal preparation. Making this happen takes some serious cash and is out of reach for most parents, and likely impossible for single parents. At an average of €19 an hour in suburban Dublin and 10-hour days, that equates to an average salary of almost €50k before tax. When the kids are older, many families reduce the minder's hours to after school and evenings. Jennie* and her husband work in tech and they have a minder who looks after their primary school age children from lunch to 6.30pm. 'When the kids were younger, we'd drop them to creche at 7.30am and pick up at 6pm. They were the last kids in the creche and it almost broke me. We thought one person probably needed to give up their job or we needed to move out of Dublin,' she says. Covid put the brakes on that decision by allowing them to work from home, easing the pressure a bit. If they'd left Dublin and moved closer to family support, it would have involved a long commute for one while the other would be in the car driving the kids everywhere instead of walking, or doing a short drive, to school. Jennie is the only woman on her senior management team with a family or in a relationship. Everyone else either has a full-time stay at home wife or they are single. 'It's important to work but you need to do it so it doesn't cost you everything. It can hold you back though; my peers can stay later, go on work trips.' Living by a 'spaghetti junction of spreadsheets' Some dual income parents have a web of support involving several people – a childminder every day and a cleaner/cook once or twice a week – with both parents working from home two days a week and extended family or close neighbours filling in the gaps. Anne*, who worked in large legal firms from 1996 to 2016, and her husband decided to have several children and she left the profession to work for herself in a related field with more flexibility. Managing the children and the household takes a 'spaghetti junction of spreadsheets' and messaging apps she said. And the organisational role still falls largely on women. Things have changed in the last 10 years though. 'Conversations around the legal boardroom table have changed. Men are saying no to things now because they're dads (age 35 to 45) and want to be there to support their wife and kids. I'm seeing more dads [in the legal profession] at kids' matches and doing school runs. They're in as much of a sweat now as their wives and partners are.' The long hours work culture means parents are always on, even when they're at home, says Jane* who also left the legal profession for a more flexible job. Her husband recently reached the top of his game in law but it's a real juggle. [ A 9-5 work schedule operates on the assumption someone else is looking after your house and kids all day Opens in new window ] 'You need to get home at 6pm or 7pm for the minder so you have a couple of hours with the kids. Once they're in bed, you log back on at 9pm or 10pm and work for a few more hours. Sometimes you're working weekends. 'Weekends tend to be full of activities with the kids; going to matches and flying around to different activities. There's not enough time with the kids or one another. It's difficult to find time for yourself to (exercise) and to be together as a couple. People are wrecked, running around all the time.' Some employers have really stepped up to help parents by providing working from home options and more flexible hours and the Government's hot dinners and childcare supports are good initiatives, says Anne. She's scathing however when it comes to schools. 'Schools need to be more mindful of the people behind the children, especially when they're organising multiple midday events or ringing because a child forgot something. Some people can't leave work – or they have to take a half day off for each event – and if they're not there, the child will feel they're the only one without a parent attending. The guilt is terrible.' Ireland's professions are still structured around the one earner, one stay at home parent model, despite the higher educational levels of both men and women, and the financial necessity for most families of two incomes. Something has got to give. *Names have been changed Margaret E Ward is chief executive of Clear Eye, a leadership consultancy. margaret@
New York Times
25-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
‘Motherhood Should Come With a Warning Label'
Last year, Times Opinion asked readers to tell us about their journey to motherhood. Almost 2,000 responded, and an overwhelming number were not actually focused on the path to parenthood. Instead, readers wanted to talk about the challenges they experienced after their children arrived. Their struggles are encapsulated well by Patsy Freeland of New Jersey, one of the dozens of women my colleagues followed up with, who said, 'I was not prepared for how inflexible work would be, how expensive it would be and how much our society and economic systems are built off of taking my labor as a mother for granted.' Her words perfectly illustrate the 'motherhood penalty' as depicted in the video above. Technically, the motherhood penalty is the notion that when women become mothers, they earn less money and their wages tend to decrease with each child. When men become fathers, their wages increase, especially among the highest-earning men. That's the 'fatherhood premium.' Inflation over the past several years has made the motherhood penalty feel even more like a punishment. While the motherhood penalty has been the term of art for what happens to working women when they become mothers, it does not encompass the financial hit taken by the stay-at-home parent. This financial burden isn't just temporary, either — it stretches all the way to retirement. Mothers have less money in personal retirement accounts, and they also receive less money from Social Security because they're more likely to have gaps in their employment history, and their caregiving isn't valued by society in the way that it should be. Which is to say, caregiving is neither paid nor truly respected. Because child care has long been more expensive than a mortgage payment in most states, many women feel that their choices are constrained. They're not always working because they want to, or staying home because they want to — they're trying to complete a financial puzzle that has several pieces missing. Of course, many fathers feel this, too, but culturally, they're pushed more into breadwinning than women tend to be (which may not be what makes them happiest, but it does make them more financially solvent). Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Motherhood Delayed, Not Denied
This is the May 22nd issue of the ForbesBLK newsletter, dedicated to elevating and empowering the world's top Black entrepreneurs, leaders and investors. Delivered every Thursday straight to your inbox, it's a must-read for those looking to stay inspired. Click here to get on the newsletter list! Hey ForbesBLK. Ayisha Mendez here. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the first time in U.S. history, more babies are being born to women over 40 than to teenagers. While that trend may not be shocking, what continues to stun is the persistence of the motherhood penalty—the measurable career and income sacrifices women make when they become mothers. Recently, I sat down with Erica Cobb, a TV and podcast host whose latest project, Fertility Unfiltered sheds light on her deeply personal journey with infertility. It's a challenge that affects Black women at nearly twice the rate of white women, according to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. In our conversation, Cobb, the CEO of digital media company ComebackTV, recalls a pivotal moment early in her career. She landed a dream job, only to overhear leadership suggesting that a future co-worker on maternity leave was no longer needed as Cobb had filled an adjacent role. That moment, Cobb says, revealed the quiet calculations that too often sideline mothers in the workplace. It also impacted her decision to prioritize a career before motherhood. Erica Cobb According to the Institute For Women's Policy Research, 'motherhood accounts for nearly 80% of the gender pay gap in the U.S.' Add to that systemic discrimination, career drop-offs, burnout, and soaring childcare costs – it's clear: the professional world still hasn't made room for working mothers, causing many women to delay motherhood. 'It's not too late,' Cobb says. 'You can have both.' Thanks to science, advances in modern medicine, and accessible family planning, women are gaining more agency over when and how they choose to build a family without sacrificing their professional ambitions. Still, at its core, Cobb's mission is clear: to help women feel less alone, stay more informed, and be empowered to advocate for the lives and careers they deserve. Check out the full interview here. Until next time, stay connected with me on LinkedIn and Instagram!
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
5 Infuriating Facts About The Motherhood Penalty At Work
The majority of moms in America are working. Seventy percent, in fact. But a large body of research has found that the gift of a child comes at an unfair, heavy price to their careers. Sociologists call it the 'motherhood penalty.' Here is evidence-based research of how the motherhood penalty can play out for working moms in their careers. Having a kid can boost a father's earning power, while it takes away some of the mom's. Women lose 4% of hourly earnings on average for each child they have, while men earn 6% more, research group Third Way found, using decades of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. This gap in earnings persisted even after controlling for factors like family structure or family-friendly job characteristics. Why do fathers get a bump in pay? Michelle Budig, the sociology professor who authored the report, opined that 'Fatherhood may serve as a signal to potential employers for greater maturity, commitment, or stability.' But working mothers are not seen in that same favorable light. And mothers with the least economic advantages paid the highest price ― researchers found that low-income mothers got hit by the wage penalty the hardest. Meanwhile, high-income fathers who were married white college graduates got the biggest wage bonus from becoming a parent. Are you a thirty-something married woman with no plans to have children? Even if you do not want or plan to have children, your employer may still think you do and penalize you accordingly, economists found for a hiring bias study. The researchers sent out 9,000 fictional job applications for part-time secretarial and accounting jobs in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, where it is standard to include marital status and children on resumes. Each applicant was listed as 30 years old, but varying marital and motherhood statuses changed the outcome of callbacks. Married women with older kids had the highest rate of callbacks, while married but childless applicants had fewer callbacks compared to single but childless applicants. Why are working moms with older kids preferred over new working moms? The researchers suggested that women with older kids signal that they are not having more children and therefore 'convey low pregnancy risk and low costs associated with child-care chores.' When you seek a part-time job, you are signaling a desire for flexible hours, but employers may also make assumptions about your availability based on the possibility you will get pregnant. 'Our conjecture is that employers consider childless but married women at particular 'risk' of becoming pregnant,' the study's authors wrote. 'We interpret these findings as presence of substantial hiring discrimination based on realized and expected fertility for part-time jobs ― a possibly surprising result, since these jobs are typically meant to be particularly family-friendly.' Hiring is filled with first impressions built by resumes listing what you have done and what you can do. But mentioning that you are a mother in the hiring process can lead to assumptions about your commitment to being available for work. In a 2007 study, researchers Shelley J. Correll, Stephen Benard and In Paik found that fictional job applications received equivalent positive reviews when parental status was not mentioned. But when the job application mentioned motherhood, those rating the prospective employees 'offered mothers lower salaries and were less likely to hire them because they believed mothers were less competent and less committed to their jobs, a form of discrimination called 'status-based discrimination,'' Correll wrote. After you return to work from having a baby, you may also encounter expectations that you should prioritize family over work. If you go against this expectation by showing commitment to your job, you may face backlash for going against the traditional expectation of being a mother first, a worker second, according to another study by Benard and Correll published in the journal Gender & Society in 2010. The pair recruited 260 participants and asked them to judge job applications by highly successful candidates for a mid-management position. The applicants' professional profiles were similar, but their genders were not. Accomplished mothers were seen to be significantly less likable and less committed than their identical male counterparts who were fathers. 'Women with children seem to face a 'double-bind,'' Benard and Correll wrote. 'Either they are perceived warm and likable, but not competent and committed enough, or, even if they unambiguously show competence and commitment, they are penalized for breaking with traditional gender stereotypes as they are perceived as less warm and more interpersonally hostile.' After having a child, parents often have to take on the added demands of child care. Flexible work arrangements can be a win-win for everyone: When employees get more control over their own schedule, they are happier, which in turn can lead to higher retention and engagement. But again, gender bias is evident. In a 2014 study of over 600 workers, sociologist Christin Munsch analyzed how people reacted to flextime requests between a fictional employee and a human resources representative. When a man requested to work from home for child-care reasons, almost 70% of the participants said they would approve the request. But when that same request came from a woman, that number dropped to about 57%. When men made the child-care request, only about 3% of participants found the man to be not committed to his job, but when a woman did the same, about 16% found her to be not committed to her work. Traditional expectations of motherhood are still being used to judge women. 'Today, we think of women's responsibilities as including paid labor and domestic obligations, but we still regard breadwinning as men's primary responsibility and we feel grateful if men contribute in the realm of child care or to other household tasks,' Munch said. Pregnant Women Are Still Struggling To Keep Their Jobs 12 Famous Women Share Career Lessons They Learned From Mom It's 2019. We Need To Start Describing Women Better Than This.
