Establish your career first.
Emily Mallender had her first child at 19.
She worked three jobs and dealt with discreet side-eyes, but is now a mum of two, and an award-winning international speaker, business coach, and marketing strategist.
However, the motherhood penalty hit her hard. The 33 year old returned to work post-pregnancy only to face a drop in wages, reduced hours, and being passed over for promotion.
She says: “I always think women are expected to work like they don’t have children, but then to parent like they don’t work.
“I’d have liked a higher contract to have secured the knowledge that I was bringing in a set monthly income. But they couldn’t offer me the hours that I wanted. A lot of the shifts they were giving me were evenings and weekends.”
This is an issue Dr Giacomo Vagni, a lecturer at the University of Essex, found in his study. 20% of working women have missed out on having a professional job because they became mothers.
Dr Vagni says that the main issue is the decline in mothers’ working hours.
He says: “Some mothers never fully return to work at all. Others change occupations altogether.
“As a result, a significant share of mothers who otherwise would have entered professional occupations, never do.”
Dr Vagni says part-time work hinders mothers’ chance of upward class mobility, despite it being a last resort for them.
He says: “In many cases, mothers are not necessarily freely choosing flexibility in an ideal sense. Instead, the lack of affordable childcare or insufficient support from partners could push them into part-time employment.”
The penalty traps young mothers into a systemic loop. The privilege of having a child is warped into a long-term economic and mental burden.
According to Make Mothers Matter, 71% of mothers in the UK report feeling overloaded (compared with 67% across the EU countries surveyed).
Nearly half of mothers have experienced mental health issues.
But how can you bypass the penalty if you’ve already had a child?
Dr Mariaelisa Epifanio’s research into the penalty within academia highlighted three main factors that can help a young mother’s career progression.
- Look out for childcare provisions
She says: “If you want to have a child, it would be ideal to also consider the type of availability of child care that you have, because this is a strong predictor of your salary in your career progression.
- Be aware of the line manager
She says: “A line manager that is not sympathetic can make your work life quite miserable once you go on leave and once you come back.”
- Think before you put a ring on your finger
She says: “If a partner takes on about 75% of child care in the first two years the child is born, this correlates with higher earnings.”
So what if your boss is screwing you over? That doesn’t mean you should play small. Get ahead of the penalty so that you don’t have to choose between work and family.
