Working Mothers, Barnard Daughters

October 26, 2011

Behind the Pay Gap (2010)One year out of college, women working full time

earn only 80% as much as their male colleagues earn.

Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning only 69% as much as men earn.

Possible factors: college selectivity, choice of major, employment discrimination, division of labor within families.

Source: AAUW Foundation, Behind the Pay Gap (2010)

Behind the Pay Gap (cont’d)

Motherhood and fatherhood affect careers differently.

Mothers are more likely than fathers (or other women) to work part time, take leave, or take a break from the work force—factors that negatively affect wages.

• Among women who graduated from college in 1992-93, more than one-fifth (23 percent) of mothers were out of the work force in 2003, and another 17 percent were working part time.

• Less than 2% of fathers were out of the work force in 2003, and less than 2% were working part time.

The division of labor within families

• The difference between motherhood and fatherhood is particularly stark.

• Motherhood in our society entails substantial economic and personal sacrifices.

• Fatherhood, on the other hand, appears to engender a “wage premium”.

• Indeed, men appear to spend more time at the office after becoming a father, whereas women spend considerably less time at work after becoming a mother.

• Where both mothers and fathers work outside the home, by some estimates, mothers on average make 80% of the child care arrangements for their children.

List of sources• AAUW Educational Foundation, Behind the Pay Gap (2010)• Ann Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood—Why the Most Important Job in the World

is Still the Least Valued (Metropolitan Books, 2002)• Pamela Stone, Opting Out—Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home

(University of California Press 2007)• Deborah Tannen, You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in

Conversation (Random House, 2006)• Sharon Cohaney, et al., Trends in Labor Force Participation of Married Mothers of

Infants, Monthly Labor Review (February 2007)• Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Labor, Labor Force Participation of Women

and Mothers, 2008; www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/ted_20091009.htm • Tovah Klein, Danielle Auriemma, Experiences and Challenges of Women Combining

Academic Careers and Motherhood Presented at the AAUP Conference, Washington, D.C., June 11, 2010;

• ABA Commission of the Women in the Profession, A Current Glance at Women in the Law, 2011.