How Biases About Motherhood Impact All Women at Work

Women’s experiences as parents in the workplace are completely different from men’s. Men get a “fatherhood wage premium,” while mothers encounter a “motherhood penalty” in wages and advancement opportunities. One might think that women without children have workplace advantages on a par with their male counterparts. But they don’t. The maternal wall hinders all women’s careers, whether they plan to have children or not.

Women without children face four biases. First, they face the “maybe baby” bias, when women ae not hired or promoted due to an assumption that they would become mothers. They also experience a “do more” bias, where women with no children found that they were expected to work longer and harder than their peers with children. Third, they face a “pay less” bias, where they are seen as less deserving financially because they were “not working to support a family.” Finally, there is a “never quite right” bias, where women are perceived as less worthy of positions, promotions, and earnings than their male colleagues, whether women want or have children, or not.