Poor Working Moms... Literally

I ran across an article that called for eliminating the secrecy around what people earn, with slightly utopian views about how pay transparency would eliminate closet favoritism and make companies more competitive. According to the author, men are also better at asking for raises, which apparently helps explain why men end up earning more than women.

I could write a post on that topic alone but whether men are better at asking for raises isn’t really the point because it turns out that on average, women earn as much as men once you factor in profession, education, seniority, hours per week, etc. Of course, the experts continue to debate this but they have managed to agree that working moms on average earn less than men and childless women alike.

Rats. Now they tell me.

That’s right, working women pay an economic tax for having children as a result of missing time at work, restricted flexibility and reduced work hours. There are several forces at work here:

• Availability – Working moms are available at odd times and in an era where promoting work life fit is still pretty cutting edge it makes them stand out. The burden is usually on them to set expectations and find ways to make it work with individual personalities.
• Flexibility – Lack of flexibility plays a starring role when it comes to a working mom’s reduced earning power. Working moms are more likely to have limited ability to travel, relocate or live away from home during the week, all of which may deny them access to higher paying roles.
• Time Out – In addition to missing salary raises and bonuses while on maternity leave, working moms lose months or even years of work experience and professional development. It's sad but true that corporate life moves on without you while you’re at home changing diapers and trying to get back into your skinny jeans.
• Perception – People who work long hours may resent people who knock off at 3 to pick up the kids, which is understandable until you factor in the working moms who log on to finish their work after their kids are in bed. 

Note that none of these things involve people trying to put working moms at a financial disadvantage but we seem to be on the fence about whether we want gender equality in pay or fair pay.

If we want equality, the result will not necessarily be fair because it would require artificially inflating the wages of a workforce segment without considering performance.

And as long as we base rewards on subjective definitions of performance and availability, working mothers will continue at a distinct - but nonetheless fair within the system - disadvantage. If we change the rules, however, and start rewarding things like productivity, effectiveness, work life balance, and ability to multi-task, working moms will have a more even playing field.

Fortunately for working moms, the way we work is changing on the heels of new technology, new economic reality and a new generation entering the workforce. People are focused on work life fit, more people work remotely and technology is re-defining how we share ideas and collaborate. In this new world, working moms have more opportunities to seek higher pay than ever before.

Recently one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies did their annual financial planning via a three day ‘webjam’, enabling more than 1000 people to participate in the process. It was cheaper and more environmentally sound than flying twenty executives to meet in a hotel and I’m guessing they had a working mom or two involved, multitasking away in the background.

In a world where business leaders talk about the aging workforce and the war for talent, companies have an opportunity to consider a potentially undervalued demographic and start planning for the future - after all, kids grow up.

So can companies.

Laura Schroeder is EMEA product marketing director at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.  She has nearly fifteen years of experience envisioning, designing, developing, implementing and  evangelizing global Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions and holds a  certificate in Strategic Human Resources Practices from Cornell University.  Her articles and interviews on HCM topics have been published in the US, Europe and Asia.  She lives in Munich, Germany and enjoys cooking, reading, writing, kick boxing (well, kicking things) and spending time with friends and family. If you want to read more from Laura, check out her talent management blog Working Girl or follow her on Twitter @WorkGal.

Picture courtesy of Mom Trends.

Comments

[Trevor Norcross]

Hi Laura,
Interesting post. With the vast data that Workday has have they ever considered running their own analytics across organizations? I always hear what ADP has to say about job adds/losses in economic reports, why doesn't Workday get involved?

On this post topic does Workday have enough data to prove or disprove the pay gap for working moms? Talent analytics is a growing area of interest and this would seem like a great way to lead the discussion.

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

"Even as far back as 1981, The American Compensation Association (now WorldatWork) conducted a survey of member pay using a regressed questionnaire job evaluation approach proving that when the variables of age, experience, education, number of jobs, position level, organization type and company size were accounted for, women earned much less than their male peers. When I first read that study in 1981, seeing how pay increased for factor after factor, until the very end, I was stunned when I read the final instruction to subtract 14.3 percent from the predicted total compensation figure if you were female." (Workspan, http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimComment?id=38793, July, 2010)

That survey included a measure of actual time worked (to exclude "mommy track" time off), as I recall. And it was conducted by one of the distinguished occasional guest CompCafe contributors. The survey of member pay was never repeated.

[Tony Bergmann-Porter]

If you're rewarding or evaluating people based on facetime, there's a problem.

With that said, I'm always skeptical about any research using education as a variable that does not distinguish between degrees in hard sciences versus liberal arts (or anything ending in "studies")