The “motherhood penalty” women face after having a child affects not only pay but job quality too, according to research co-authored by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership.
While previous research had established that becoming a mother typically has a negative impact on women’s earnings (with hourly pay estimated to be 33% lower than men's), little was known about how parenthood influences the day-to-day experience of being at work.
But recent findings, part of a research project funded by the Nuffield Foundation and published in the academic journal Social Indicators Research, underscore the extent to which becoming a mum leaves women having to contend with worse employment experiences and options.
Using a statistical model based on 12 indicators of job quality, the analysis shows mothers are over-represented in roles classed as “poor-quality” due to a lack of control over hours and tasks, poor access to formal and informal flexibility, few benefits, few promotion prospects and a lack of access to training and development opportunities.
The findings also show that the trade-offs made by mothers and fathers in their employment situations – on things like pay, career opportunities and flexibility – are rather different.
The research identified a group of jobs with high levels of control over the nature and timing of work but poor access to training and prospects. Nearly a third (29%) of mothers with children in primary school held such jobs, and this group was much more likely to do so than fathers of children in the same age range (16%) or women without children (13%).
GIWL Senior Research Fellow Dr Rose Cook said: “One may look at these results and think mothers have ‘chosen’ to sacrifice rewards and prospects in favour of working more flexibly around their children’s needs, while dads choose to prioritise breadwinning even if it means less time with their kids."
"Indeed, mothers are over-represented in jobs with strong access to informal flexibility and control over job tasks and timing but limited career progression and rewards," she says. "Yet it is not inevitable that this choice should have to be made, or that seemingly only women should have to make it."