The lasting financial penalty of motherhood

[IwantToRetire]

Five years after the birth of a first child, mothers’ monthly earnings are on average 42% lower (£1,051 per month) than in the year before birth.

Across five years, mothers lose:

• £65,618 after their first child
• an additional £26,317 after their second
• an additional £32,456 after their third

The likelihood of paid employment also falls significantly after childbirth, dropping by as much as 15 percentage points after a first child, and 10.5 percentage points after a second or third child.

Even when mothers remain in employment, their earnings stay substantially lower for at least five years.

More details https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/our-work/news-and-views/ons-analysis-financial-penalty-motherhood/

I'd like to see research that explores why there is this loss of earnings. The problem with this research is that it looks at all women and then tries to extrapolate that specifically to single parents. Flexibility is arguably less of a necessity for people in couples where both parents are equally willing to use their parental rights and actually do their share. It is a prime necessity for single parent families unless they have a marvellous co-parenting relationship.

So yes, all women are earning X amount of money, but how many women have made an informed and supported choice to reduce how much they work because they want to be home?

I definitely know women in this position. Yes I also know some married women who reduce the working hours to offset childcare prices, but I do know some who would not want to be the one who works outside the home more than their (usually male) partner if there has to be a choice (and there usually does).

I think what would help is if there was a law that stopped people discriminating against parents who have CV gaps because they were parenting at home. I'm not sure how it would work, but for the women who choose to be out of work and parent, it is this that limits their earnings on their return in my experience. They can't get a role in the same income bracket.

I think you have misunderstood.

It isn't about staying at home or working fewer hours.

It is the lack of flexibility in the work place for people with child caring responisibilities.

And too often that is the mother, and rarely the father.

Surely everyone knows that.

Not my experience at all, not that of any women in my friendship circle. Problem with this sort of data is it doesn't necessarily differentiate between the women who choose to be SAHM, or don't want to progress. It just assumes that if a women is working less or earning less there is another reason

No youve misunderstood.

The data talks about the earning loss of all mothers. It doesn't specify whether all of those women would agree that the reason they now earn less money is because their job wasnt flexible enough for them to work as much as they wanted.

Gingerbread said they found that to be the case for single mothers. They are a charity for single mothers (maybe parents, not sure if they specify).

"At Gingerbread we regularly hear from single mums telling us they simply can’t find jobs that are both flexible and match their level of education and skill. This means too many women are forced to take lower paid roles that offer flexibility and allow them to care for their children. For some, this juggle is impossible and they end up pushed out of the labour market completely, this is particularly likely when their children are young."

Gingerbread said they found that to be the case for single mothers. They are a charity for single mothers (maybe parents, not sure if they specify).

Talk about stating the bleeding obvious.

Everyone knows Gingerbread is for single parents so that would be their focus.

I think you read a bit more about the pressures on women to "reduce" their hours. Were they given a choice by the partner? Was it really a choice.

Its a bit like having a discussion with someone back in the 1970s.

Exactly, thats why research that explores how many women make a supported choice to earn less money vs those who do not would be interesting. Do you have links to research that attempts to differentiate these groups of women? Genuine question.

Exactly.

The data only looks at earnings, it doesn't look at context.

You can't validly draw the conclusions you are making from this data

Well it hit me

a man ( quite soon after he became the ex) who refused to share childcare meaning I ended up on 3 days a week and ruled out of things and even when I was full time ( single parent by then) I was doing all school pick ups , and everything else - quite tricky!

when we were still together he refused to look after his own daughter for a single evening to enable me to prepare for a promotion interview - I was up all night instead - didn’t make it to interview

Further opportunities not taken because as a single parent I had insufficient childcare support - hard to go away for a week if you have a child whose dad won’t step up and family long distance

and that first lost promotion has cost me a lot of income and pension

because once you have a child there is no pressure on the man to care for it and someone has to

and men don’t show their spots until it’s too late

Regardless of whether none, a few, some or most women who end up earning less did so because they willingly chose to be SAHM or to work reduced hours/less pressured jobs/etc. it still means women end up with less financial resources. That has some profound consequences for society - especially in how much State support women need compared to men, and lower quality of life for financially vulnerable women and the loss to society of skills they were trained in before having children which they are no able to use after.

OP you’re being quite rude and you’re showing you have drawn conclusions that aren’t obvious from the data you’ve shared.

Raising a family is a whole extra 24 hr job. Of course it’s going to impact people. You’re assuming the impact is purely from women not being able to maintain their employment when that will be only a part of the answer.

I don’t have access to Google but look up a map of the gender pay gap. There is not a single country in the world where women are being paid close to the same as men, even in countries where legislation exists that should have improved this. In some countries it’s 50% (on average). Structural issues to do with the motherhood penalty are a big part of this issue. But also women being socially conditioned to be nice/kind/unassuming/not negotiate, meaning we tend to accept lower salaries early career, then incrementally being shafted from there onwards at every pay rise. I suppose my point is that this research is about how much women have lost compared to their previous salary. If we compare that like for like to a man’s salary, the result will be even worse.

Okay but only extremely left wing people think that a parent should receive full (or more) pay while totally off of work and raising their kids. Most people.agree that if you work fewer hours or in a less demanding role, you should receive less money.

I chose to be on the ‘Mommy track’ and I am not gonna apologize for it. I already have a full-time job, why should I have a demanding job on top of that? Nowadays I do my contracted hours and leave, don’t do OT and definitely no travel. It’s my choice.

Do you believe that most mothers are forced into being the parent who steps back in their career when they have a baby? I do honestly get what you mean by 'was it really a choice?', but even in relationships where the father wouldn't have wanted to be a SAHP or go part-time, that doesn't mean that the mother didn't also actively want to. I certainly did. I was out-earning dh before we had dc and my career and earnings took a massive and very long-lasting hit. My choice. I remained PT for 18 years!

I don’t think anyone here has suggested that that women should be given full pay while off work for years or on reduced hours. I don’t see how that solution would address my point about the current situation increasing the need for state support of women, nor about the issue with loss of skills to the economy.

More flexibility for parents, more affordable childcare, better retraining options and routes back into employment after 5 - 10+ year breaks, and increasing the share of the burden taken up by men would address those issues.

If women did receive full pay while off, they'd not need as much of the state support they require because they'd still be earning. The only people who would support that would be be way on the left of the political spectrum.

We still aren't sure how many women overall leave their careers due to a lack of flexibility or the childcare issues. We know this is true of mothers who are single and/or in the lower socioeconomic brackets, but it might be more related to poverty than a general female experience.

I do think that a sizeable number of women want to assume the primary caregiver role for children because they don't want to share some aspects of decision-making when it comes to how to raise the children. So if some women were offered more input from their co-parent, but it meant you have to listen and go with some of their wishes and suggestions as a co-parenting team, then they'd rather keep the status quo and remain the one who does most hands on childcare.

It’s not very surprising, and probably can’t be fully mitigated. Add in the further impact of additional family responsibilities - ageing parents to help just at the point when children need less support and a career could get its second wind - and you have a working-life long effect on women.

Some women are fortunate enough to have genuine choice, while remaining financially comfortable. Most are not.

These are good suggestions from @RawBloomers :

More flexibility for parents, more affordable childcare, better retraining options and routes back into employment after 5 - 10+ year breaks, and increasing the share of the burden taken up by men would address those issues.

I genuinely believe that if men stepped up at home and took on 50% of domestic and child rearing responsibilities the motherhood penalty would dramatically reduce.

I do know one couple that do this - my DS and DDIL. They tell me that they’re somewhat unusual even among their relatively privileged social circle (middle class urban professionals). Dads are engaged to varying degrees but few approaching the magic 50%.

I don't think that research would tell us, though, whether that "supported choice" is genuinely what a woman wants or if she just does it because she knows a man isn't going to.

Qualitative research could tell us quite a bit.

It was interesting to see the research and I'm planning to have a dig into the data when I have some more free time.

It's been my experience, even at a fairly senior level. I think part of it is the impact on networks of disappearing for months at a career stage when the next opportunity is often through recommendation. Part of it is likely also sheer unconscious bias as it's yet another way you probably aren't like the previous incumbents in the role which makes it harder for people to visualise you doing it (this may be sector dependent - mine is heavily male dominated).

Has anyone seen it split by wage quartiles? I'd expect women on the highest wages to have an impact as a single promotion can be worth so much money.

Again - no one suggested the state should be paying women full wages when they aren’t working full time.

Increased state support isn’t so much about the few years of motherhood - which are largely support of the children. It’s the decades after when earnings, then pensions, are too low to meet minimum requirements. The financial penalty women pay for children is significant in the first few years. But it goes on for their entire lives because it is not possible to replace the lost experience and career development, and so many women end up going from higher paying more skilled careers to lower paying less skilled ones.

My own point above was that it doesn’t matter if the reasons women do it are because they can’t juggle it all, their husbands job is their family priority, or they are controlling about the kids - it’s not healthy for the economy. If we can start by providing the flexibility that all those single mothers need to keep up their earnings, that would be a huge win. We could move on to considering what to do about mothers who are reluctant to earn money once we’d tackled the low hanging fruit.

Why would we need to do anything about them if they don't want to work more than they do and everyone is happy with that?

This is when we move away from feminism and towards paternalism.