The "Motherhood Penalty"

Shelley Correll, an associate professor at Cornell University, is researching something she's calling the "motherhood penalty," that is, the professional disadvantage that women experience because of their status as mothers. Not only is there (still) a large gap between what men and women earn, but Correll's research is showing that women who are mothers earn substantially less than women who do not have children.



Something that I immediately thought about was how differently mothers and fathers are perceived. I was pleased to see that Correll addresses this in her article regarding the "motherhood penalty." writing that "Being a good father and a good employee are part of the 'package deal' defining what it means to be a man. Therefore, since the 'good father' and 'ideal worker' are not perceived to be in tension, being a good parent is not predicated to lead to lower workplace evaluations for fathers."

Not so for women. Though Correll is careful to note in her conclusions that while there is a definite wage disadvantage women experience for every child they have, her research does not show (at this time) that discrimination against mothers causes a decrease in this wage disadvantage.

From The Clayman Institute for Gender Research's article: 

"In one test, Correll and her colleagues found that evaluators consistently ranked mothers as less competent and less committed workers than childless women but ranked fathers as more competent and committed than non-fathers. In a follow-up study, the researchers responded to more than 600 newspaper ads for high-level business positions by sending out fake resumes for two equally qualified candidates that varied only in very subtle references to parenting activities. They found that the childless female candidate was twice as likely to be called in for an interview as the mother. Fathers experienced no call-back penalty."

In fact, according to Correll's article, fathers were offered higher salaries over childless men as they were seen as "more committed to paid work."

Questions: Has anyone experienced any discrimination in your job because of pregnancy or your status as a mother? If you don't have children, is this something that you worry about if you plan to start a family? And for those mommas currently at home, do you have concerns about what getting back into the workplace will be like for you?

[Thanks to Adventures in Boogieville, who also linked to this video]

Hormones

The post on "The Motherhood Penalty" raised questions about hormones in mothers and fathers. I started thinking about the hormones released after pregnancy, especially in a breastfeeding mother such as myself. I feel like I'm a different person after Felicity's birth five months ago. Why? And will I return to my formerly fabulous self, or is this new, kind of high-strung, super-sensitive 'me' here to stay?

It seems that the moms in my support group (who also mother infants) are a bit confused as well. We're told we have all of these hormones floating around, and that they cause any number of symptoms, but we seem to be reading different materials and hear different things. You heard breastfeeding made you lose weight faster? My doctor said that I'll hold on to an additional 10 pounds until I wean... etc.

I have to say, after spending a forty-five googling, I'm having difficulty finding any useful information that discusses the hormones present and what they do to the body.

Does anyone else feel uncomfortable just looking at this cow?

Kelly Mom (great website, by the by) cites scientific studies to show how prolactin peaks in a woman when she is full-term, then gradually declines after pregnancy. Prolactin is the hormone that tells a women's body to produce milk. Wikipedia (great scholarly resources, right everyone, right?) says that high estrogen and progesterone levels keep the body from lactating during pregnancy, and the sharp drops in these hormones after birth allows the body to go ahead and make milk. I hate even talking about what Wikipedia says, but I'm honestly having a hard time finding any good data that is informed by cited scientific backing.


But the internet is full of lots of uncited, where-the-hell-did-this-come-from information about the "hormones" that women produce following pregnancy. And according to the all-wise internet, these hormones do the following to a person:

• make you moody
• make you angry
• make you weepy (I would like to see a scientific study on weepiness, wouldn't you?)
• make you anxious
• make you an insomniac
• make you depressed
• make you hold on to weight
• make you have night sweats
• make you have hot flashes
• make you angry at your partner
• make you angry at your baby

It feels really unfeminist and somewhat dishonest to blame behavior on hormones, but sometimes I seriously feel like a crazy person. And, speaking as someone with / recovering from postpartum depression, these emotions which I'm told are a product of the hormones raging in my post-pregnancy body, can be incredibly difficult to control.
 

Questions: What symptoms (both on and off the list above) did you experience during pregnancy and after childbirth? Did you find that you 'stabilized' back to your former self after a time?

"The Myth of the Male Decline"

Check out this interesting article in today's New York Times regarding the recent buzz about "the male decline." It's a great article, and well worth your time. Here is one particularly discouraging quote that discusses the motherhood penalty as part of the larger sexist hegemony:

Once they have children, wives usually fall further behind their husbands in earnings, partly because they are more likely to temporarily quit work or cut back when workplace policies make it hard for both parents to work full time and still meet family obligations.But this also reflects prejudice against working mothers. A few years ago, researchers at Cornell constructed fake résumés, identical in all respects except parental status. They asked college students to evaluate the fitness of candidates for employment or promotion. Mothers were much less likely to be hired. If hired, they were offered, on average, $11,000 less in starting salary and were much less likely to be deemed deserving of promotion. The researchers also submitted similar résumés in response to more than 600 actual job advertisements. Applicants identified as childless received twice as many callbacks as the supposed mothers.

 

 

 

This infographic was found alongside the article linked to above, and can be found here.

The article wraps up discussing the "male mystique," that is, how men are bound within their sex to particular roles and expectations:

Just as women who display “masculine” ambitions or behaviors on the job are often penalized, so are men who engage in traditionally female behaviors, like prioritizing family involvement. Men who take an active role in child care and housework at home are more likely than other men to be harassed at work. Men who request family leave are often viewed as weak or uncompetitive and face a greater risk of being demoted or downsized. And men who have ever quit work for family reasons end up earning significantly less than other male employees, even when controlling for the effects of age, race, education, occupation, seniority and work hours. Now men need to liberate themselves from the pressure to prove their masculinity. Contrary to the fears of some pundits, the ascent of women does not portend the end of men. It offers a new beginning for both. But women’s progress by itself is not a panacea for America’s inequities. The closer we get to achieving equality of opportunity between the sexes, the more clearly we can see that the next major obstacle to improving the well-being of most men and women is the growing socioeconomic inequality within each sex.

What do you think?