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/

So we need to remove the 'motherhood penalty' by acknowledging women's biology, their contribution to the economy in bearing and rearing children, and arranging that qualifications can be deferred until after child-rearing if desired. We need to make it possible for both parents to share childcare responsibilities after the first year of life (so that breastfeeding can be carried on) and acknowledge that the family is the bedrock of our society and in need of supporting e.g. by tax allowances and provision of services for mothers (and fathers where that is the case) who choose to rear their own children - we could start by paying the money used to provide 'free' childcare to parents to spend as they please e.g. on the mother (or father where that is the case) staying at home, to use for grandparent care (where grandparents are available and willing) and child minders, not just to purchase for profit private nursery care - and this expenditure should (along with breastfeeding and nurturing children) be counted as part of GDP (because it is). We absolutely do not need more childcare outsourced from mothers, however. We have already produced a generation raised by strangers in 'safe' environments and they are mostly disfunctional in the sense they have no resilience and want to be 'safe' all the time.
We need a radical change in how the economy is run - for the people, not the other way round.

Haven't had time to follow up on this, but this is the issue.

And the fact is, if other reports are to be believed, that some Nordic countries have achieved a far better balance in terms of the impact on both parents.

In the distant past when WLM was in its early stages discussion around this were very much that the assumption would be (should be!) that responsibilities would be equally shared. The ideal being that each parent worked part time, and each parent did as much parenting, whether with a new born or later schools along with household chores and so on.

But, even if this is what couples now want the big difference is that in the past one average salary was just about enough for a family to survive on.

But thanks to the housing crisis just as much the loss of social housing as the escalating prices of buying a house, this is no longer possible for many. (That's a whole other discussion including, which some have said, one women started to be part of the paid economy rather than working for "pin money" it was easier to raise house prices because sellers could aim at 2 income families.)

The idea that anyone (unless you are super rich somehow) can make a "choice" without looking at the financial penalty is just nonsensical. And as statistics show more often than not it is the woman in a heterosexual couple who is expected to have a job but not a career.

https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1899450/hardly-dads-used-shared-parental-leave-scheme-introduced-10-years-ago-research-finds

https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/equality-work-paternity-and-shared-parental-leave

https://www.motherandbaby.com/family-life/parenting/parenting-outloud/

Sweden and Denmark have the best records for shared parenting and work-life balance, with high rates of shared parental leave, low childcare costs, and strong government support for families, particularly in the Nordic region. Japan also leads in offering generous paternity and parental leave, although the emphasis on sharing may differ from the Nordic model.

Nordic Countries Lead for Shared Parenting:

Sweden:
Ranks highest for shared placement (54%) and shares decision-making, indicating a very high level of joint parenting.

Denmark:
Has a high rate of shared placement (41%) and offers a shared model for parental leave.

Norway:
Known for its generous parental leave policies and overall support for working parents, according to Engage for Success.

Other Strong Performers:
Japan:
Offers a strong parental leave system, allowing both parents to take leave and receive wage replacement benefits, notes The CEO Magazine.

Lithuania:
Leads in offering generous paternity and shared parental leave, says Safeguard Global.

Finland:
Demonstrates high rates of shared decision-making and placement, points out a study in Springer.

Factors Contributing to Success:

Generous Parental Leave:
High levels of paid leave for both parents, often with a portion of leave specifically for fathers or to be shared between parents.

Affordable Childcare:
Countries like Sweden and Denmark heavily invest in pre-primary education and offer low-cost or subsidized childcare options.

Strong Government Support:
Robust family benefits, support for childcare, and emphasis on work-life balance are key components of these nations' success.

Cultural Emphasis on Sharing:
In countries like Sweden and Denmark, there is a cultural and legislative emphasis on shared parental responsibilities after separation and for general family life,

(google AI)

I’m not sure more hands on dads are the answer tbh. It’s not like they can breastfeed. I think the problem is money not being shared equally in the family when men are the bread winners. I’ve seen so many stories of women begging for money from their husbands which is crazy. I like the Japan model where the salary is sent to the woman’s bank account and SHE manages all the money for the family. Which is kinda what i do.

You can’t expect women to be the breadwinner AND child carer that’s physically not possible. What are the men supposed to do, just sit around and do nothing??

i don’t think the answer is more child care either. Kids are best at home with a parent. They get time to themselves and learn to regulate. Never ending before and after school clubs turn them into mindless submissive lambs where they are never allowed “me time”. No wonder there’s a mental health epidemic.

Men need to step up when I was in university I used to do the School lunchtime dinner lady job as well as breakfast club and after-school club two days a week. I need a child was ill at breakfast club or after-school club. You would ring the father and he would never answer you would ring the mother and she would drop what she was doing and come and pick the child up men just simply don't see parenting as a shared load.

The data doesn't say what you seem to think is obvious and what multiple people are telling you is that your assumptions do not fit every case.

You are being pretty rude to people telling you about their own experiences, it seems because it contradicts what you want to believe.

With single parents, most of the time they have no choice but to work, and they need flexible work. So they paint a particular picture that doesn't have much to do with what arrangements they might choose - their choices are constrained by circumstances.

It's fairly normal that in any sector, if you want a job with some kind of accommodation or other desirable element, be it flexibility, working from home, or something else - that you will trade that for lower pay. That's the reality for everyone. It absolutely hits single mums and makes things more difficult for them, but that is not the only kind of experience mothers have.

I could have gone back to work after my eldest child was born, in the same job. Which had pretty good flexibility, quite good pay, and even a childcare facility. I didn't want to because I wanted to take care of my kids, and I wanted to live rurally which meant more time commuting if I worked which imo is not great for a child, and I strongly prefered to home educate in the early years. And luckily because I was not a single mum, and my spouse was making a pretty good salary and our expenses were low, I was in a position to do what I actually wanted to do.

There are many, many mothers who are in a similar position, who want to take off more time, or return on a part time basis, or take a more flexible, but lower paid, job. And those things also go into the statistical analysis and affect the results.

You aren't going to convince people they are stupid and this does not happen because we know it happens, we can see it in front of us, and we know why we, and others we know, make these choices. Telling people they don't really understand our choices as well as you do, or are too foolish to understand the import, is pretty patronising, to say the least.

I think the flexibility thing is a lot more difficult than people realise.

If I have two people doing the same job in my company, and one person is doing the job on the hours that work best for me, which may be less convenient for the employee, and another person who has more flexibility, it seems pretty reasonable that the person who is working the less desirable, inconvenient hours might expect some kind of wage premium for that.

I don't see how it's possible to just offer mothers or even parents special privileges in terms of flexibility while others don't get that but get paid the same. It seems unjust in a very basic way.

All you post is saying is that the mother has to change, even if motivated by positive things.

And I didn't call anyone stupid.

You are lucky that your circumstances gave you choices that were what you wanted.

I think that is the issue. That the current work structure means very few have flexibility.

In the idealistic notion from 1970s women's liberation, the parenting part wasn't that only they would have flexibility, but that everyone should have that option. ie part time work for salary, but also have time to do this that aren't paid but are rewarding. For some that might be parenting, for others it might be volunteering or doing something that was rewarding.

So long as we live in a society where the cost of living, travelling, housing etc., is so much higher relatively, very few have a choice.

So in this reality, many mothers do make a "choice" to change their work for positive reasons. Far fewers fathers do.

So whether for positive reasons, or having the financial priviledge to be able to do it, women suffer a financial loss.

The word penalty as the title says is financial. Not that motherhood is a penalty.

I am not sure how you get the idea that I have said mothers "have" to change?

It is true that mothers do change, they are not mothers, and they become mothers, which most think is quite an important and significant life event. The same is true for fathers. Parenthood makes peoples' lives change in many ways, including their priorities and the practical and economic arrangements of their lives.

These aren't bad things, they are actually one of the reasons that many people have children.

Are you suggesting that mothers shouldn't change what they do or what they prioritise when they have kids? Because, why?

I agree this is a a big sticking point.

But I also thing the government could provide incentives to being flexible that could make this worthwhile to enough workplaces.

Let’s just be real. Some feminists believe motherhood itself holds women back (from what exactly?) and they believe that the goal of feminism should be to minimize that impact.

So they endlessly talk about motherhood penalties, equal parenting and wage gaps. But it doesn’t really have much to do with the reality on the ground, does it?

Working mothers often say they want more paid leave and more flexibility, more part-time options. And we want it for ourselves, not necessarily for our partners.

None of this is going to fix the wage gap, it’s going to make to worse. So obsessing about the wage gap is counterproductive IMHO

There are plenty of things that can be done to make the work environment better for mothers but often employers have no incentive to do this.For example, I work in education and my timetable was constantly being changed last minute which was a nightmare for working out childcare.

Also I was shocked after having kids how little my husband changed his working life - basically he didnt do anything different. I had to pick up the slack.

Flexibility that allows more mothers to stay in skilled work part time is likely to improve the wage gap because a significant part of the gap is the drop in pay per hour for women when they return to lower skilled work because they can't get part time work in their field or because they were out of their field for so long they couldn't return to it. That drop often lasts for the rest of their working lives, which can be 30 years or more.

But while I think flexibility has a significant role to play in lowering the motherhood penalty, properly subsidised childcare would probably do more.

This is so besides the point for someone who has become a single parent not by choice, though, which is surely what Gingerbread are concerned about!

I mean, it’s just after 7am and I don’t have time to read everything on this thread, apologies, but I need to get ready for work.

If you are raising a child yourself, with no support, even if you keep your hours full-time (as I have done), your ability to progress and meet promotion goals is hammered. In my profession, you need to be able to travel and network and do all of those kind of things, not just put in the hours (and I have put in the hours and more). And yes, your finances take a hit. And yes, that is cumulative.

I also realised recently that younger women in my profession don’t even feel like they can have babies because of the professional impact. That’s a population level issue - the birth rate is falling. Some may argue that is a good thing from an environmental perspective, but I think we need to question whether ‘choice’ is actually there. It’s certain not an equal choice with men. And I don’t think it is fair for my generation to ignore this impact on younger generations.

That's the thing. Imagine we made it so women have no excuse but to go back to full time work and they basically weren't allowed to choose to stay at home instead.

When people argue against the gender pay hap, the first thing they bring up is how female choice dictates things like what jobs they take and how much they get paid for these roles. This is why research has to aim to look at why women do what they do, and not just look at what they do.

The problem is with the OP as she conflated what Gingerbread said about "their" single mums with data about all women. So single mums may well earn less as they have fewer job opportunities but that doesn't mean that goes for married upper class mothers who left their finance role to be a SAHM because they want to.

That’s an argument for sure. But I also think many full-time working mothers would reduce their current hours in response.

Women's choices to reduce their participation in paid work are not made in a vacuum. They are influenced by history, experience, observation, societal expectations, cultural values etc. etc. Beyond the very early years, there is no practical reason why men and women can't care for children equally.

Similarly, the very nature of work and workplaces is driven by patriarchy. Often, men can only meet their employers' inflexible expectations because women are picking up the unpaid, unseen domestic and caring work on their behalf.

These two factors combine to make a powerful force against women having equal success in paid work.

I agree. Motherhood is something we do and are. Feminist who want mothers to behave as if they were fathers i.e. men and work the same hours, share the grind of parenting equally are entirely missing the point. It's not like that. Men can't breastfeed, babies are programmed to be attached to their mother who they have already known intimately for 9 mths and whose body had built them. Childcare from others is a very poor substitute for mum holding you in the middle of the night when you are hungry and feeding you from the body that made you.

I agree with a lot of what you say @Grammarnut but the "grind" of parenthood can absolutely be shared equally by men without ignoring the unique role of mothers. There is nothing innate in making packed lunches, remembering dentist's appointments, sterilising bottles, folding laundry and all the 1,000s of tasks that men too often ignore, placing a triple burden on women who are carrying the mother-load, the work-load and the domestic load.

Feminism is a broad church. It’s a caricature of feminism to say it’s about wanting women to behave like men.. To have the same rights and opportunities as men, maybe, but what is wrong with that?
That we have what is now child benefit is down to Eleanor Rathbone who advocated for mother’s allowances which became family allowances.
First wave feminists argued in part that women should be given the vote because of the qualities they brought to the public sphere as women.
It was women who advocated and organised for infant welfare and to reduce maternal mortality.
And so on. Much feminism has organised around women’s needed.
The idea that women should be like men in the workplace is a result of neoliberalist capitalism although you also found this in communist societies. In both reproductive labour is not valued.
And surely, the point is that women should not be penalised financially for their role as mothers, and they are. Nurturing and caring for your children does not pay the bills.

Might be of interest - there's already quite a bit of research that says women (as a class) choose to spend more time with young children. But no one seemed to want to know why. We did, and asked them, and lots of their stories went into this:

https://theotherhalf.uk/what-do-mums-want-report

e.g. “I do find myself feeling extremely under valued when all the emphasis is about getting woman back to the work place when in fact I've never worked so hard in my life looking after my two children."

Exactly. Too often feminism is branded as being anti-men or anti-family. For me feminism is looking at how women are treated in society and making sure that women aren’t put at a disadvantage. Whilst it is true that women may choose to stay at home with young children, this doesn’t negate the fact that women also tend to arrive considerably poorer at retirement. We need solutions that are suitable for all of society, not just those who seemingly contribute more financially - which we all know is generally facilitated by women anyway, at least in the case of heterosexual relationships with children.