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The Gender Pay Gap Is Largely Because of Motherhood
Starting a Family
While men and women of equal education may start at similar salary rates; the pay gap grows as they begin to start a family
Women in their late 20s and early 30s see the start of the pay gap since this is the age that a majority of individuals decide to start a family
Due to a wide variety of factors such as societal expectations, postpartum recovery, and mental health issues after birth, more women chose to stay home with their children.
Jobs account for this time off and often include it when discussing wages and salary expectations
Even if the topic of starting families was never discussed, age and marital status may make women at risk for this pay cut
The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus
Working fathers are viewed as more dependable, well-rounded, and often praised for being 'family men'.
Working fathers are more likely to be hired than childless men and tend to be paid more AFTER having children (Miller, 2014).
Working mothers, take a large pay penalty and are viewed as "easily distracted and less reliable".
Research finds that mothers suffer a per-child wage penalty of approx. 5% on average after accounting for other factors that can alter wages (Staff, 2012)
Statistically, higher-income men tend to take the largest pay bump for having children when they likely already have the means to support a child, unlike low-income women who see the biggest pay drop (Budig, 2014).
How COVID-19 Has Increased the Gender Pay Gap?
Pay Gaps In Essential Workers
"During the Covid-19 pandemic, 34 million women worked essential jobs such as health care, education, personal care, sales, and office occupations” (U.S.C.B, 2021).
Women make up an overwhelming majority of nurses which played a huge role in supporting the U.S. economy during the pandemic.
Despite being the majority, “Male nurses had higher median earnings than female nurses in 2019: $73,603 compared with $68,509” (U.S.C.B, 2021).
Women are more likely to be laid off during financial crises than their male counterparts and have work hours cut.
During the pandemic, 45% of women had work hours cut, compared to 35% of men (Newsy, 2020)
A majority of women work in the community, administrative, domestic, and service jobs, which have taken a huge hit during the pandemic.
Women are Less Likely to Recieve Promotions
During the Pandemic
34% of men working from home received a promotion, compared to 9% of women working from home (qualtrics, 2020).
Women must take extra measures to prove their worth during these trying times, career specialists suggested that women send "daily updates" of the tasks that they are doing in order to be at the forefront for when raises are being dispersed.
As likely everyone is not as productive as they would like to be during the pandemic, it seems unjust to hold women to a different standard of work at home.
Toxic Work Culture & Women Working From Home
Reproductive Labor and Industrial/Productive Labor are not viewed as equivalent in corporate settings, and often working mothers were forced to balance the two at the same time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
'Work culture' in the United States values consistent long hours, rather than the flexibility that often is needed for working mothers, especially during the pandemic.
Most jobs do not care about employee work-life balance, and these issues are magnified among mothers as they are twice as likely to experience poor work-life balance
During the pandemic, nearly "1 in 10 parents claimed that their employers did not offer any support or leniency" (Glosson, 2021)
While children were learning from home, similar expectations as before were withheld and many mothers felt extreme fatigue, burnout, anxiety, and depression
This toxic mentality, that this adjustment would be causes more women to be passed on raises, moving up to higher-up positions or caused them to quit their job entirely
Equal Education ≠ Equal Pay
Level of Education and The Pay Gap
Long-winded debates have discussed that more women tend to pick lower-earning majors and that this is the sole reason why they earn less annually
As more women enroll in higher-earning majors and careers, the pay gap continues, refuting this statement.
In recent decades, women are more likely to have a bachelor’s degree than men (41.7% compared with 36.2%) among full-time, year-round workers, in the U.S. (Cheeseman Day, 2019).
As explored, in the video, women are put under a different set of rules in college. Not only do they have to pick higher-earning majors, but they tend to stay in school longer to have equivalent salaries to their male counterparts (GU,2017).
Women with a Master's Degree or higher earned $83,000 compared to men of equal education with $121,000 (GU, 2017).
Regardless of how hard women fight against the pay gap through education, it is unlikely to see any drastic changes until we change legislation.
A huge factor in why fewer people advocate for this issue is that there is a mix of conflicting statistics
Cheeseman Day, Jennifer. “Among the Educated, Women Earn 74 Cents for Every Dollar Men Make.” Census.gov, 8 Oct. 2021, https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/05/college-degree-widens-gender-earnings-gap.html#:~:text=Among%20the%20Educated%2C%20Women%20Earn%2074%20Cents%20for%20Every%20Dollar%20Men%20Make&text=More%20education%20 leads%20to%20 higher,degree%20than%20among%20the%20without.
Glosson, Megan, and Megan Glosson (634 Articles Published) . “Moms 2x More Likely to Experience Poor Work-Life Balance than Dads.” Moms, Moms, 17 Mar. 2021, https://www.moms.com/moms-more-likely-poor-work-life-balance/.
Miller, Claire Cain. “The Gender Pay Gap Is Largely Because of Motherhood.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 May 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/upshot/the-gender-pay-gap-is-largely-because-of-motherhood.html.
U.S. Department of Commerce. “Unequally Essential: Women and the Gender Pay Gap during Covid-19.” U.S. Department of Commerce, 24 Mar. 2021, https://www.commerce.gov/news/blog/2021/03/unequally-essential-women-and-gender-pay-gap-during-covid-19.
Staff, Jeremy, and Jeylan T Mortimer. “Explaining the motherhood wage penalty during the early occupational career.” Demography vol. 49,1 (2012): 1-21. doi:10.1007/s13524-011-0068-6
Pandemic Worsens Gender Pay Gap - Youtube. Newsy, Mar. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-v6Jn2NxHM.
“Women Can't Win: Despite Making Educational Gains and Pursuing High Wage Majors, Women Still Earn Less than Men.” CEW Georgetown, 13 May 2020, https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/genderwagegap/.
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