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As a woman trying to make her way in a male-dominated industry, I can attest to the fact that getting ahead didn’t come easily or naturally for me. I had to speak up more than I was comfortable with doing, kept up beer-for-beer with my boss at happy hour, ditched every stitch of pink clothing, and expanded my work vocabulary to include a wide and colorful variety of four-letter words. Did I do this because I wanted to? Not quite. Did I do it to relate more to the men in my office in the hopes that they would begin to see me as an equal and offer me more work, responsibility, and pay? You betcha. After over a year of hard work, I’ve finally gotten to the point where my career is in a great place and I’m an indispensable member of my team. Unfortunately, once I start to pop out babies, that’s all going to go to hell.
A new study just published in the American Sociological Review found that if you’re a wealthy white woman who chooses to have children, things are going to suck for you once you get back into the workplace. When taking into consideration time off for child-rearing and the loss of future raises from being out of work, for every child white women who worked high-paying, high-level jobs have, their incomes decrease 10%. Lower-paid women aren’t excluded from this, but their losses drop to only 4-7% of their salaries per child.
While I do feel bad for these rich white women (partly because, well, I am a white woman), I have to call bullshit on this study and its so-called “findings.” If you’re bringing in 6 figures on a regular basis, is it honestly that surprising that your wages would be adjusted to an annual $90K after taking a generous amount of time off in unpaid leave after having a child? After all, at that salary, your livelihood probably doesn’t depend on you returning back to work the second you squeeze out an infant. However, if you’re a receptionist making $32K a year without paid leave, not only is it going to be necessary for you to return to work ASAP to make ends meet, but, quite honestly, your salary can’t take too many hits when you’re at the bottom of the income pool, meaning your earnings take a lower percentage hit than women making bank.
Of course, it sucks that women lose money for childbirth regardless, because unless I missed something in ninth-grade health class, it takes more than just a female to make a baby. But unless the U.S. decides to begin implementing a paid-leave policy or you start working for a trendy tech giant with inclusive corporate policies, taking time off for childbirth and any additional time you want to spend with your newborn should probably be factored into your budget when determining your cost of living. Personally, I’m not planning on having any kids for quite a while, so I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed for a more liberal policy-maker in office by the time my biological clock starts ticking. .
[via QZ]
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Steph W.
Steph W. is a new Master's degree graduate with an intern's salary and six-figure taste. She realizes her expectations far exceed reality, so she spends her days pinning away Loubs she pretends are in her physical closet instead of her virtual one. Her hobbies include attempting to trapping her boyfriend into marriage before he finds out how insane she is and pretending that Black Box wine tastes as good as the kind she could afford when she was gainfully employed. Send her tips for getting out of student debt at recruitchairtsm@gmail.com
@therecruitchair
Listen everyone, I’ve been MIA for awhile to start a new career and find myself and stuff and basically what I have found is that the corporate oligarchy doesn’t give a fuck about you (man, woman, child, and everything in between). Get used to it and be grateful for what you have because all we are as a country is a nation full of temporary workers and renters. Don’t expect PTO, don’t expect food or friends either. We can stop this vicious cycle by not reproducing anymore. This will also prevent the arduous task of trying to convince rich assholes to give us a more humanistic approach to raising a future debt slave.
Your commentary has definitely been missed.
This makes me want to join a fight club and destroy society.
Let me drop some facts for you kids. Every woman should be entitled to at least 6 weeks of fully paid maternity leave. That being said, I as an employer, should be entitled to deny her raises and opportunity at work if she is leaving often to take care of her child and just in general focusing more on her family than career. It’s a business not a charity.
So performance based? Is that any different than what is done at the majority of private sector companies? As long as they’re doing what is being asked of them by their employer to the desired level of quality does it matter how much they focus on their family?
The US is far behind with the whole paid-leave for women. As a man in a culturally female dominated area, it’s difficult to see women want to have babies but not really have the PTO to take care of their child. No offense to men, but women are simply more capable of taking care of children (for obvious biological and psychological reasons). Raising children, especially so early in life, is crucially important for a child’s rearing and education. Why America hasn’t gotten on board with this is beyond me. Thanks, Obama.
I’m sure Mary would be proud of the son she raised. Probably still sucked having to take all the PTO though.
I hear her baby’s daddy is loaded.
Probably also sucked to give birth without at least getting laid first.
I think it’s really more of a parental leave issue than a strict maternity leave issue. Your “women are more capable of taking care of children” comment aside, having a kid takes a major physical toll on a woman’s body. And that’s ignoring post-partum depression. So maybe, just maybe, we can give some time for the father to take care of the woman who just did this, and the two of them working together can make sure their drunken tryst turns out to be a functioning member of society?
Either way, something’s gotta give. This whole system where women use short-term disability so that they can take time off is ridiculous.
So I work in politics (kinda) and did some research into maternity leave in other countries a few months ago. You’re right, America’s is not up to par with PTO for maternity leave. But the countries who are touted in Huff Po articles and other media outlets as having great mandatory maternity leave policies paint a darker picture when looked at as a whole. I don’t want to get into a rambling comment but basically, those countries with maternity leave policies on average, pay female employees between 9-20% lower than America does for the same positions. And women do not and are not considered for higher management positions due to the possibility of them becoming pregnant. These side-effects are just generally accepted by women in those countries as a trade-off for having maternity leave safety nets in place. The problem is, it also affects women who are single, not planning to ever have children, or biologically cannot have children too. They see the decrease in pay and are looked over for promotions, but do not ever reap the rewards of a maternity leave. Here’s an article that talks about it, it’s pretty interesting. http://acculturated.com/maternity-leave-facts/
TRJ, did you just comment also on the LA Times piece about automation, too? Just curious. You in SoCal?
Definitely not. Opposite side of the country, Gainesville, FL. Is someone impersonating my likeness? Gonna need to copyright my own damn name!
He goes by The Real Kevin Jennings but has your same picture, TRJ.
Ugh, yeah. Obama is the worst. He made birth control available to women without ridiculous co-pays and prioritized women’s health, making paid leave part of the national conversation. Total fuck up.
Paid leave? If you’re married, your husband pays the bills for his complicity. If you’re not married, the kid will probably be a fuckup anyways so you might as well work or ride the welfare train.
As the child of a single mother, I’d like to say that I’m certainly not a fuckup, and you can go fuck yourself pal.
I’m a child of divorce and I’m definitely a fuckup, so I think we cancel each other out
Ayyyyyeeeee, single parent child here too.
Glad you beat the odds, Champ.
While I disagree with a lot of what you just said, people need to plan their lives better. Things like waiting till you are financially stable/ married to have children will go a long way in your career success as you aren’t constantly juggling as much.
If you are low income and have other barriers to employment with the chance of financial mobility should you just not have kids…?
“While I disagree with a lot of what you just said…” Restates everything I just said but in a coddling way for millennials.
People will follow your advice more readily if you give them ideas on how to actually be successful instead of calling them a fuck up if they don’t.
What about a participation trophy with a marshmallow on it to signify how soft they are?
Sorry didn’t realize I was talking to a full blown badass
or fund planned parenthood and offer free contraceptives.
So the tax payers should pay billions of dollars so that women don’t have to buy birth control that costs the same as a monthly Netflix subscription? It’s not the role of government to provide contraception.
All studies show that communities that provide free contraceptive spend why less money in welfare. That’s why I want pills dispenser on every corner, like a gumball machine.
It is the role of government if you look at it through the lens of public health and if you want your society to be generally full of reasonably well functioning adults, raised by parents who generally wanted their children. Access to contraception is the best way to make sure people are having kids when they want to have them. Access to contraception is most limited when it is needed most (teens), through both cost (teens generally don’t have a lot of money) or stigma (they don’t want to ask their parents). These programs seek to alleviate those barriers. Also, Planned Parenthood received just over $500 million from the government last year, of which around 30% went to contraceptives, so we’re talking about $150 million. Which in terms of government spending is a fraction of a fraction. (source: http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/05/429641062/fact-check-how-does-planned-parenthood-spend-that-government-money). People and teens (especially) are gonna bang. Making sure they have the tools and education to do so safely and avoid unwanted pregnancies is a public health concern.
Providing birth control will help control the population, which will in turn reduce the strain on resources, lower the overall cost of entitlement programs, lower the overall cost of medical care and allow women and couples to better prepare over multiple years for procreating instead of having to hurriedly prepare in 9 months or less.
Oh boo hoo. First taxpayers have to cover your student loans and now your lack of savings and responsibility so you can have a child? Fucking millennials.
How’s homeless life treating you?
So good, I’m going to start handing millennials my money when they walk by, clearly getting their student loans, birth control, maternity leave, child care, etc. all paid for will improve my life (at least that’s what they tell me).
I wouldn’t recommend that. I would recommend giving a percentage of your money to a larger entity comprised of representatives selected by yourself and fellow citizens who then work to balance the needs of everyone to maintain stability both globally and domestically. In return you’ll generally get a functioning economy with infrastructure, protection from foreign and domestic entities, and many other services that seek to maintain a well functioning society, avoid and mitigate catastrophic events, prevent humanitarian crises both domestic and globally, and generally promote life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of its citizens.
Balance the needs of everyone? Defense, Medicare and Social security comprise 3/4th’s of the budget, not much left for all the needs of all the disgruntled 26 year olds.
Any firm with over 30 employees should offer paid leave or at least a portion of paid leave for childbirth. Having compassion for your employees pays dividends.
Here’s an idea: don’t expect to take 6-12 months off work and then come back and pick up right where you left off. That’s not equality.
Why would they not pick right back up where they left off? Are you advocating they get a pay cut or demotion for having a child (which is illegal)? Or are you in some way advocating they should get a pay raise (why?)?
Or are you just saying they shouldn’t get put back on the same projects they were working on? Which I assume would be expected, since the business will still keep going without them. I assume they’d come back to the same position, take a few weeks to get back up to speed on what they missed, and be back doing what they were doing on new projects.
I’m not advocating that they get a pay cut or a demotion. All I’m saying is they’re taking time off work to be with their newborn child, which is absolutely necessary and commendable. But business and business and while they are not working, others are working and picking up the work that they are not doing. So by definition, they are no longer on even ground with others because of this missed time. So it shouldn’t be surprising that their earnings potential is lower as a result.
I agree. There probably shouldn’t be much of a raise (or any) when performance review time comes around after taking 6 months off. Impossible to makeup that much time. But at the same time 10% lower earnings per child over an entire career can’t be explained by just 1 missed raise. I’m thinking there’s a deeper connection here between performance and having kids. And maybe more importantly the definition of performance as well. Busting ass 60 hours a week, while commendable and should be rewarded, shouldn’t be the status quo.
Uh, what maternity leave policy in the US do you know of that offers 12 months off? Because the plan that most white-collar women use is short-term disability, which usually falls around 3 months.
3 months per kid times 2-4 kids.
Mmm, based off of your original comment I think you’re grasping here, but okay.
There’s still a world of difference between taking 3 months off every few years and taking an entire consecutive year off.
Not when stuff moves forward in the company but you don’t because you’re on leave. It’s also unfair to all those that don’t leave and stay there and work.
If the conversation is on “wealthy white women”, I don’t think paid leave is the issue so much as not moving up at the same pace as colleagues without kids. You’d think you’re less likely to get a promotion if you’ve been out of the office for 3 months
From personal experience, my past 2 bosses have returned from maternity leave and definitely work less hours than the other directors to go home & spend time with their kids, which is great for me as I get to leave when they do.
Not really a solution I can see – comes down to each individual family and what parent decides to take more time for the kid.
Just to throw an all-encompassing comment out here… I’d like to think that paid maternity leave for women (and men) will become the normal eventually, especially in 10 years when more of our generation is in charge. Now, because I’m paranoid and trust no one, I don’t think it’s something a policy can fix or make better without screwing something else up, so I’d prefer that the government stay out of our business.
I kind of have a theory on this based on my personal experience as well as those around me. Most women I know (including myself) go back to work and face a huge battle. My theory is that by time you leave and have your baby you are DONE. You haven’t had a good night sleep in ages, your memory is gone and you have just spend a lot of time preparing someone else to do your job while you are away.
Then you go back to work. Be that 6 weeks, or in my case 3 months, after having the baby. Most likely you are still not sleeping because babies are evil time sucks of sleep. So you get back to work, and you’ve trained the person filling in for you sufficiently, and everyone is thinking that you really are now expendable because you trained your replacement so well and frankly they are doing a better job than you did when you left because you were kind of a mediocre employee who couldn’t remember what happened the day before without having to write it down. And hey, it gets better if you are still attempting to breast feed, because now you need to take time away from your desk to hook yourself up to a machine to milk your boobs like you’re a fricking cow, plus your hormones are still out of wack. So you’re an even shittier employee in their eyes because they now have to make accommodations. Oh and let’s not forget that staying late or coming in early are no longer really an option if you ever want to see your kid, not to mention that you are restricted by how many hours you can have your spawn at wherever you have parked them for the day because they are usually available only during certain hours. But you do get the convenience of giving said child care option about 15-25+% of your income depending on where you live.
I had the extra bonus fun of my employers actually doing some shady illegal stuff that I later found out that I could have gone to an EEO representative. The ultimate smack in my face was that I was put on a performance improvement plan where my pumping was listed as an issue. Good times!