The Family Pay Gap: What is it?

I have a mind bug.

One of those things that I keep coming back to wanting to find out more. An itch that needs scratching!

Let me share it with you and see what you think.

Careers After Babies: The Uncomfortable Truth showed that three quarters of women earn less after they have children than they did before they have them.

One the one hand, that's to be expected. 87% are working fewer hours, most frequently 20-40%.

But we also know that there are 32% fewer women at management level.

Combining these three things it tells us that women are falling out of higher paid management roles into lower paid, lower hours jobs, creating a gaping mother-shaped hole at leadership level where earnings are higher.

This leads to the gender pay gap. I am emphatic in my thinking on this. Yes, confidence is an issue. Yes, we have an issue with promoting even the women who are there because of biases and perceptions of women. But I am pretty confident that the majority of the gender pay gap is attributable to motherhood. After all, it opens up between ages 30 to 40. The average age to have a child in the UK? 32.

Additionally, early research emerging from men across the globe who have taken shared parental leave suggests when they take an extended period, they too notice an impact on their careers. As more fathers and co-parents share leave, we will see this play out.

If women are taking less leave and men and co-parents are taking more, then things should start to balance out. You would hope that the playing field would be levelled off.

EXCEPT!

I believe that parenthood as a whole is what's driving people out of industry. I believe that men and women working more flexibly, taking leave and generally being there for their children means that they are earning less. I also believe that people who don't have children continue to see their salaries grow.

That's why I think the pay gap we should be focusing on is the Family pay gap. The payment differential between parents and non-parents.

No organisation I have spoken to, which is getting into the thousands, are looking at whether there is a pay differential between parents and non-parents. It's just not something we are paying attention to.

But I have a hunch that we soon will be.

At the beginning of 2025, I'm incredibly excited to be entering into the research phase of Careers After Babies: The (Even More) Uncomfortable Truth.

We want to understand what’s changed (if anything). We also want to broaden our response groups by looking at more diverse response groups including fathers, co-parents, single parents and those from under-represented communities. And we want to understand whether the Family Pay Gap is "a thing".

(We are looking to partner with a sponsor for the research, if you think you might be interested, drop me a DM and I'll send you some info.)

It's going to be bigger and even better than before. So watch this space!

And if you're interested in learning more about how Careers After Babies supports organisations on their journey to becoming a world-class employer of working parents then you know where to find us!

Things you should check out

Watch this talk on the gender pay gap relating the gender pay gap to its' root cause. Agree, agree, agree!

Read The Power. I've mentioned it before but I love how it throws our biological sex up in the air. Genius.

The norovirus is going around school now - 75% of the school have had it so far. Just what I wanted after the killer virus. Wish me luck....!

See you next week

Jess

PS I'm currently trying to wind down for Christmas, with one or two big things left to do before I close off. One thing I am doing is sorting our events calendar for 2025 so if you're an expert in the working parent conundrum, give me a shout