According to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, while the benefits of having children are shared between both parents, it is mothers who primarily bear the costs.
The Persisting Disparity in The Workplace
Despite the rising levels of education among women and their increased representation in senior leadership roles at work, women are still more inclined than men to take breaks from the labor force or reduce their working hours due to caregiving duties. Some studies indicate that some women also opt for occupations that offer lower pay but greater flexibility to accommodate their family responsibilities.
Those caregiving responsibilities have significantly contributed to the ongoing gender pay gap, commonly known as the motherhood penalty. The study authors from PNAS observed that for mothers, both employment rates and earnings, when considering employment, decline sharply around the time of childbirth for women and may persistently remain lower even long after childbirth.
According to Jasmine Tucker, vice president of research at the National Women's Law Center, a perpetuating dynamic exists. When a child falls ill and someone needs to take time off from work, it tends to be the woman due to her lower wages. From an economic standpoint, creating a self-perpetuating prophecy makes more sense.
Contrarily, men do not encounter a penalty as parents. A separate report by the British Trade Union Association TUC suggests that full-time working fathers often receive a wage bonus when they have children, making roughly 20% more than men without children.
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Breadwinner Moms Have a Heavier Load at Home
Even in cases where women outearn their husbands, they tend to shoulder a more significant burden in caregiving responsibilities, highlighted in a separate survey by the Pew Research Center and an analysis of government data.
Richard Fry, a senior researcher at Pew, emphasized that even though there may be more egalitarian marriages, their duties at home have not been equalized, noting that the gender disparity in caregiving persists, even if wives are the primary breadwinners.
Indeed, the PNAS study also discovered that the motherhood penalty is even more pronounced in female-breadwinner families, where women who earn more experience a 60% decrease in earnings compared to their male partners before childbirth.
Hybrid Jobs Can Help Breadwinner Moms
While the significant expense of childcare in the U.S. remains a burden on women's labor force participation, changes in workplace dynamics may offer some relief, according to Lauren Sanfilippo, senior investment strategist at Bank of America's Chief Investment Office.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous employees resisted returning to traditional office settings, prompting the adoption of a hybrid work model, which typically involves working three days a week in person, which has become more the norm than the exception.
Office attendance has settled at 30% below pre-pandemic levels, as indicated by a report from the McKinsey Global Institute, which is aiding women in remaining in the workforce after having children, as suggested by other reports.
The hybrid work environment since the pandemic may help alleviate the motherhood penalty somewhat, providing more flexibility and improving opportunities for working mothers, said Sanfilippo.
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