The NEW Pay Equity Gap

We've long debated the pay equity gap between men and women. Here's a new one - the growing salary gap between women with kids and women without.

The search for work is still a tough one but not all applications will be considered equally, says new research at Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

It's called the “motherhood penalty.”

Mothers looking for employment are less likely to be hired, are offered lower salaries and are perceived as being less committed to a job than fathers or women without children, according to her recent study of gender inequality in the workplace. What's more, the pay gap between mothers and childless women is actually bigger than the pay gap between women and men.

"At some level, there is still a perceived incompatibility between family and the workplace, which disadvantages mothers," says Professor Correll, an associate professor of sociology. "My research finds that mothers are judged by a harsher standard, which leads to a 'motherhood penalty' in getting hired and being offered a good salary."

Ms. 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.

Ms. Correll says the research points to a pervasive and almost subliminal discrimination that also affects business outcomes.

Media Source: Central Valley Business Times, CA