Dealing with Motherhood Penalty

Consider two women applying for a job: they have similar skills, experiences and education. One is mother and the other is not. According to research conducted by sociologists at the Cornell University, if two women with similar skills and experiences apply for a job, the mother has lesser chances of getting the job. Why? Motherhood penalty. Simply put, working moms are disadvantaged because they are mothers.

The laboratory experiment found that mothers were penalized on a host of measures, including perceived competence and recommended starting salary. Men were not penalized for, and sometimes benefited from, being a parent. The audit study showed that actual employers discriminate against mothers, but not against fathers.

Does having more responsibilities – being a mom, wife, and employee – make a woman less competent in the workplace? How about the moms already employed? How does a mother stack up against her non-mother coworkers?

What really annoyed me in the findings of this experiment is the sweeping generalization that is the norm (allegedly) among hiring managers in the workplace. A working mom is perceived as less competent because of too many responsibilities on hand. But based on whose standards is this? Which industry? What is the background of the hiring managers? Is this an age-limiting, country-specific issue, as well? Certainly, there will be a host of other issues that will stem from motherhood penalty. Women should be on the lookout for hiring managers who employ such unprofessional HR practices.