The motherhood penalty is a term describing the career problems women face after having a child. It is the price women pay for growing their families while still in the workforce. The motherhood penalty has been described by sociologists as the additional disadvantages mothers face in the workforce. One woman succinctly described it using the phrase, pregnant then screwed. Here are some ways women who choose to have children get screwed in and outside the workplace regarding their careers.
The motherhood penalty is based on the conventional view that women are the primary caregivers and so they have a duty to stay home and raise their children. Mothers who choose to work can be harshly judged by society at large and viewed as less committed to their jobs by employers. This social judgment may seem trivial, but it isn’t. The socialization is deeply ingrained with mothers often feeling guilty for going back to work.
One study found that there’s a deep discomfort among most people regarding women working outside the home. They only support it if the woman must work for the survival of the family not if she works simply because she wants to. If women go back to work and don’t put in the hours like other workers, they are considered less committed, and less competent but if they stay up late, they are bad mothers who don’t care about their children. There’s just no winning.
Women who do take time out to care for their children face significant challenges when they go back to the workplace. One study found that women who took advantage of job flexibility or went on a career break when their children were very young suffered a long-term penalty. It took up to 6 years to return to the level they had been at before the career break. It should go without saying that their counterparts not facing the motherhood penalty had long advanced by then.
Less likely to be hired
One Harvard study found that hiring managers are less likely to hire mothers than women who don’t have children. When they’re hired, they are also more likely to be offered a lower salary than those without kids and more likely to be passed up for promotion.
Women being paid less, increases the likelihood of women leaving the workforce when they get children. This makes them dependent on men which is often a breeding ground for abuse and maltreatment. So women start out being paid less, and when they have children it gets worse making them even more financially precarious and poorer overall in terms of lifetime earnings.
Fathers, it should go without saying faced no such discrimination. In fact, fathers are more likely to be hired because of the assumption that they will be more committed, and more hardworking because they need to support their families. Men are only penalized when they try to do the mother’s work, i.e., the caregiving.
One study out of Rutgers found that both men and women looked down on men who were open about needing time off for caregiving. Male workers who needed flexibility and regular time off for caregiving were seen as less committed, less intelligent and in some cases less promotable.
While women are facing all this discrimination at a social level and in their workplaces, they are also dealing with increased unpaid, often devalued work on the home front. Women do roughly 75% of all domestic labour and it only gets worse when they have children. In fact, ironically, the more a woman earns, the more housework she does, go figure.
What this society subjects women and mothers to at every turn is vicious. Some of the solutions that have been recommended include:
1. Pay transparency throughout the organization,
2. Workplace support beyond maternity leave: Workplaces need to expand support to include absences from work to care for sick children and go to doctor’s appointments, access to pumping accommodations at work and general flexibility in terms of work hours and even location, e.g., working from home. They can also offer support for miscarriage and adoption loss.
3. Mindset shift: Shift from the patriarchal mindset that paints only women as caretakers as well as establishing social services that focus on meeting people’s needs.
The following can also be done. Removing barriers for women returning to work, providing childcare solutions and facilities for working mothers, and offering learning opportunities for all women to be able to assume leadership positions. Also, managers need to be sensitized about their biases when it comes to working mothers especially when it comes to promotions. Other solutions include additional employer support and better legislative policies. Read more about that in this article Careers: What Is The Motherhood Penalty And What Should Be Done To Solve It?
Relationships: How To Split Housework With Your Partner
Careers: 6 Signs You Need A Pay Raise
5 Ways Companies Can Create A Thriving Environment For Working Mothers – A Case Study Of Safaricom
Gender Issues: Women Let Us Champion Each Other And Break The Glass Ceilings Together
5 Issues Facing Women All Around The World
Relationships: The Fair Play Method Of Dividing Housework And Childcare