Who Suffers From the "Motherhood Penalty"?

New research on the "motherhood penalty" confirms that when poorer women have children, their careers suffer more than their wealthy counterparts'.

While studies have previously confirmed that women's wages and careers suffer when they have children, a new study by sociologists Michelle J. Budig and Melissa J. Hodges looks at the motherhood penalty for women at different income levels and stages in their careers. The higher a woman climbs, the less likely she is to be a mother, forced to make a choice between career and family that men don't generally have to. Women who do make it to the top of their fields and manage to have children benefit greatly from family-friendly policies (as well as the resources to hire a nanny) and their careers do not suffer. But for the bottom 95% of women, the opposite is true.

From who's suffering from the recession to who's dropping out of schools, the answer is always those who have less.  As the report states, women who are less affected by the motherhood penalty earn more, are farther along in their careers, and work at organizations with women-friendly policies that prefer to cultivate talent over high turnover. That's rarely true at the other end of the spectrum, where women are fired for taking too much time if they suffer medical complications or because they can't afford expensive childcare. This not a random cruel joke society is playing on the poor: it's a direct result of state and federal laws that allow employers to punish women, especially young and poor women, for having children. As economist Nancy Folbre on the Economix blog concludes, "More universal family policies, such as early-childhood education, paid family leave, paid sick days and paid vacation time could help most working mothers substantially increase their earnings."

Lastly, the motherhood penalty for poor women is yet another reason it will be a real shame if candidates like Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and Ken Buck win Senate seats next week. Can you imagine Budig and Hodges presenting their findings to Congress (as they did, video here), only to be rebuked by politicians who don't even believe in Social Security? If GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck, as a district attorney in Colorado, refused to prosecute a rape case, he certainly won't lift a finger to help women once he's in Washington. And of course, it doesn't help that those politicians who would do nothing to help end the motherhood penalty also refuse to help poor women prevent unwanted pregnancies by providing reproductive care, comprehensive sex-education, and access to abortion.

Poor women earn less and lose their jobs when they have children because politicians make bad policies, from the classroom to the doctor's office to their place of work.

Photo Credit: mrhayata