Moms' Equal Pay Day and the Politics of “Choice”
Not that choice. But also, that choice too.
Yestereday was Moms’ Equal Pay Day. This means that mothers worked 20.5 months to earn what working fathers earned in 12. It’s no surprise that mothers are near the bottom of the gap scale. We don’t support mothers – at home or in the workforce. The gender gap, overall, is driven by how big the gap is for mothers, since most women do, at some point in their lives, become mothers.
(Like most pay gaps there are variations. Mothers working full-time earned 74 cents compared to fathers. Those working part time earned 62 cents. The numbers aren’t broken out by race for mothers, specifically, but given that Black, Latina and Native American women all experience larger gaps than white or Asian women I think it’s safe to assume similar gaps exist for mothers of color. Equal Pay Today has the data broken out on this page.)
But too often we get told that this gap is the inevitable, nay natural!, outcome of the choices that women and mothers make. They choose jobs that are more flexible. Or jobs that aren’t as demanding. They choose jobs that require less travel, for example. They even choose to go part-time, which both depresses their wages in the short term and often derails their career in the long term.
But what does choice even mean in a society that doesn’t provide universal paid leave, doesn’t guarantee access to healthcare, and offers little to no support for childcare or eldercare? Most mothers “choose” from a menu of crappy options.
Of course you can’t talk about the mother wage gap without talking about domestic inequality. A big part of why so many mothers “choose” to take on less demanding jobs is because they also “choose” to take on more unpaid labor. Whether this means being the default parent while working fewer or more flexible hours or leaving the workforce completely, there is no question that this is part of what drives the difference between mothers and fathers wages.
But the politics of choice are complicated. Some women do make this choice willingly, happily. Some women feel they have no choice but to take on the heavier domestic burden, whether because their spouse won’t or the logistics are too challenging. Some of these women come to resent the choice they were forced to make.
And some couples, mostly but not only white couples, make a calculated choice to prioritize the career of one spouse over the other. And the spouse they usually “choose” to take on the big earning job is the husband.
Back in 2019, Claire Cain Miller wrote in the New York Times about research by Claudia Goldin that found some jobs (law, consulting, finance) had become “greedy” – so demanding in terms of hours that it would be impossible for both parents to hold one. The sentences that jumped out of that article, and have stuck with me for four years, are these:
“Women don’t step back from work because they have rich husbands, [Goldin] said. They have rich husbands because they step back from work.”
These choices (that word again!) get explained as what is best for that particular family. They are making a rational choice in a society that provides too few good choices.
And yet. None of our choices exist in a vacuum. I was once startled in a women’s executive networking group when one of the participants asked the group “How am I supposed to compete against the men at my company who have stay-at-home wives?” It’s a good question, one that many people of all genders ask. Not surprisingly most C-level jobs are held by people – regardless of gender – who have either a nonworking spouse or a spouse with a significantly less demanding job.
That there are more women willing to pull back for the sake of her husband’s career is a factor that drives the gendered leadership gap. And it also means that men who do not have the privilege of free domestic labor are at a competitive disadvantage. (For an explanation of how this phenomenon is a factor in the wealth gap between Black and white families I recommend reading The Whiteness of Wealth by Dorothy Brown.)
And, this is all to say nothing of the large swaths of the country where women are no longer even able to choose whether or not they want to be a mother.
A single essay is not going to dismantle the patriarchy and white supremacy. Hopefully this one made you think about this issue in a different, more nuanced way than you have in the past. Let me just leave this with two overarching thoughts about the mother wage gap. First, while better corporate policies are needed and welcome, we won’t come close to closing the gap and making life better for mothers and families without robust public policy around leave, childcare, eldercare and more. Second, better public policy alone will still not completely solve this problem.