Motherhood Penalty
In The Price of Motherhood (2001), economic reporter Ann Crittenden observed that women's labor in the family, including housework, meal preparation, childcare and eldercare, has been "sentimentalized as a labour of love" and uncompensated. "The caring economy" (as family work is called) is uncounted in the paid economy and, consequently, under-supported by social welfare benefits and policy. In the United States, parenting receives so little government support, such as paid parental leave and subsidized child-care, that women mainly bear the cost of child care through their own unpaid labor. No wages for work in the "caring economy" of the home means no pension or retirement benefits and lower Social Security in older age. Thus women are systematically impoverished for being mothers and the primary caregivers of elderly parents.
A 2003 Government Accounting Office (GAO) study of the impact of parenthood on working mothers' and fathers' salaries found that women are penalized and men, rewarded. Working mothers suffer a loss of earnings (average of 2.5% for each child), while working fathers enjoy an increase in earnings (average of 2.1% for each child). http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-35. What might explain these differences: for starters, gendered stereotypes of employers, namely that working mothers have reduced productivity and working fathers work more efficiently.
Women and Federal Policy
In her primer Women and the U.S. Budget (2005), Jane Midgley frames the federal and state policy issues which contribute to women's lower economic status than men. For example, women working in the public sector have, on average, salaries that are closer to comparable men's salaries and have more access to employer-funded pension benefits and health plans. Thus the trend in privatization of government services threatens the economic gains for women in the workplace. Working mothers in particular have a triple layer of discrimination: being concentrated in lower-paying jobs, without benefits; being the majority of unpaid caregivers of society; and receiving inadequate government assistance for welfare-to-work programs. In addition, flat state taxes and sales taxes take a larger percent of their smaller salaries. Midgley concludes that tax policy is a "major instrument" for increasing inequality, with single working mothers -- who do not enjoy tax shelters and tax entitlements at the bottom.
Recommendations to Gain Justice and Equality for Mothers
Support economic autonomy for women through training and opportunities.
Support as generous a social welfare system of benefits for mothers raising children as is provided for soldiers and war veterans.
Lobby for enforcement of equal pay and equal employment opportunity rights and for family-friendly work arrangements,.
Lobby for the right to organize, given that the gender gap is smaller among unionized workers than non-unionized.
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