Let’s say you’re a woman who has worked ridiculously hard to get to where she is in her career, you’re performing great, and are considering starting a family or have recently become a mother, then BAM all of a sudden you begin to notice changes at work. These could range from micro aggressions around your perceived competence, to advantages other coworkers are given, and even to a decrease in your wages. This is called the motherhood penalty, which is, you guessed it, literally a penalty associated with becoming a mother or having more children.
While the Federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, it unfortunately doesn’t prohibit an employer from thinking a mother is “worth less” than another worker. According to the National Women’s Law Center, mothers in the U.S. working full time, year-round earn 70 cents for every dollar a father makes, or $18,000 less annually. A study, called “Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?”, found that women who indicated they were mothers on job applications were less likely to be considered and offered less money if they did get the job. It even showed that competence ratings for mothers from evaluators were 10% lower than non-mothers.
We as a society should be working together to support mothers and hold employers accountable by addressing the biases working mothers are facing every day so that the motherhood penalty can eventually be eliminated.
