Penalizing Ourselves
The very focus on a motherhood pay “penalty” reveals a society with misplaced priorities.
These days, it seems that wealth requires three things: being female, single, and childless. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows that in 2019, single women without children had an average of $65,000 in wealth; their male counterparts had $57,000. For those with kids, the situation is reversed. In what some call the “motherhood penalty,” working mothers earn an average of 70 cents for every dollar made by a working father. Single mothers are, perhaps unsurprisingly, the poorest group of all, with only $7,000 in wealth.
The media celebrate the financial rewards of being female, single, and childless. “Women who stay single and don’t have kids are getting richer,” declares one headline. But these trends are long-running. Time reported more than a decade ago on the “reverse gender gap”: women under 30 earning more than men of the same age. In major cities, in particular, being young and female reaps financial rewards. Research suggests that when women hit their mid-thirties, the point by which they are most likely to have started a family, their earnings start to fall.
Recent data on pay and sex should prompt serious questions, though, about the established gender-pay-gap narrative. For too long, campaigners have used pay data to portray women as victims of patriarchal working practices and sexist bosses. Every year since 1996, advocates have marked Equal Pay Day to note “how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.” Without explanation or context, it can appear as if women get paid less simply for being female. This is an irresponsible, and inaccurate, message to send young women about to embark on their working lives. It perpetuates a sense of victimhood that bears little relationship to reality.