From examining micro data from 1978 to today, Dr Amanda Gosling<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Kent, has found\u00a0that the gap in pay between higher educated mothers and fathers (the \u2018motherhood penalty\u2019) is as large today as it was 40 years ago.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Barriers to career progression for mothers with some post-school education\u00a0have hardly shifted,\u2019 she said. \u202f\u2018The gap in pay between mothers and fathers looks very similar now as it did in the late 1970s. The story for Gen Xers is the same for Boomers and the Millennials.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, the change for mothers without any higher education has fallen flat this past decade after years of steady progress. Dr Gosling said: \u2018For women without any post school education, the story for mothers \u2013 from the 1970s until quite recently \u2013 paints a picture of fast progress. The percentage gap has almost halved from almost 80% in the late 1970s to about 40% in 2012.\u202fHowever, over the last eight years the process of catch up has stalled.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Dr Gosling\u2019s findings show that today, the median hourly earnings of mothers are currently only about 72% of fathers, meaning that if women do take time out to become mothers it is unlikely, on average, that they will never be able to make up the 28% shortfall to catch up with their male peers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This gap is considerably larger than the one represented by the gender pay gap, and\u00a0poses a much bigger issue when considered with the current cost of living crisis. Dr\u00a0Samantha Evans<\/a>, Lecturer in Human Resource Management at Kent Business School, University of Kent, added:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Women are more likely to work in lower paid, precarious employment than their male counterparts, and it is understood that the cost-of-living crisis is disproportionately impacting these women because they are less able to absorb the inflationary shock of higher energy and food bills. These inflated household costs become bigger proportion of income for lower paid women, who are also less likely to have savings to cover such increases in the cost-of-living.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018For mothers, the cost of childcare is a big issue as it puts additional pressure on parents, usually mother\u2019s, financial resources. Childcare costs have risen significantly in the UK in recent years. A recent survey of parents found that childcare costs have forced 43% of mothers to consider leaving their jobs and 43% to work fewer hours. The same survey found that 25% of parents say that they have had to cut down on expenses such as food, heating\u00a0or clothing to afford the increase in childcare costs with 99% of parents saying that the cost of childcare is making the cost-of-living crisis even more challenging.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018When women try to respond to the cost-of-living\u00a0crisis by seeking out better paid roles, motherhood again makes the job market more complicated for women. Due to their childcare needs, changing jobs can be more challenging for women and they are also less likely\u00a0to be geographically mobile to do their caring responsibilities.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018All of this paints a very concerning picture for women this winter, as evidence clearly links financial wellbeing to employee performance because financial distress has a detrimental impact on employee wellbeing and engagement.\u00a0Evidence also shows that women are more likely to be suffering from burnout post-Covid largely due to the pressures they were under during the pandemic taking main responsibility for home-schooling.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Equal pay day\u00a0\u2013\u00a0\u2018the day in the year where women effectively stop earning relative to men because of the gender pay gap\u2019\u00a0\u2013 is set for Sunday … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66395,"featured_media":4649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4648,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645\/revisions\/4648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/economics\/files\/2022\/11\/The-Motherhood-Penalty-v4.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n