It has been the diatribe of women for centuries: work or be a mother; career or raise a family. Today, millions of working mothers in the U.S. must choose between one or the other or try to do both while sacrificing their physical and mental health.

What we didn’t know until now, however, is that mothers earn 31% less in wages than fathers. This found a new Bankrate analysis of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) data.

The difference that $1,400 a month makes

According to the new analysis, in 2023, mothers earn $55,276 versus $72,280 earned by fathers. This is a 31% difference, similar to the 32% reported in 2022.

According to Bankrate, those lost wages can add up significantly to approximately half a million for mothers over a 30-year career.

In short, for women who choose to become mothers, achieving financial goals such as saving money, paying down debt, or investing is much more difficult.

“We still have women doing a disproportionate amount of care work,” said Yana Rodgers, Faculty Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. “As long as that’s going to continue to happen, and as long as there are perceptions that care work is women’s work, we are going to continue to see a motherhood penalty.”

Motherhood adds a layer of inequality to the wage gap

After centuries of oppression and inequality, American women seem to have come a long way—but not far enough. We have made gains in education and in the workplace. However, we still face an uphill battle against the wage gap.

Using the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey 2023, Bankrate analyzed median annual earnings among seven groups of full-time working men and women. The analysis considered women and men of various marital statuses, as well as whether or not they have children under 18 in their households.

The analysis confirmed that women who work full-time, year-round, earn 84 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. Women of color, especially Latinas, fare worse. Women of color earn 57 cents less.

While this wage gap narrows for single women without children, it widens for mothers.

“If you look at the gap between childless men and childless women, it’s still larger than it should be, but they’re pretty close together in terms of what their wages look like,” says Dr. Joy Misra, provost sociology and public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

So, where does the motherhood penalty come from?

The new analysis found that full-time working mothers with children under 18 lose about $17,000 annually. According to Bankrate’s calculations, full-time working mothers could lose as much as $510,000 in wages over a 30-year career, assuming those earnings remained the same over time.

Rodgers explained that the maternity penalty is most often due to women taking lower-paying jobs that offer more flexibility after becoming mothers.

“Why are they doing that? It’s mainly because we still have an uneven distribution of care work that’s being done in the home, where women do more care work than men,” she said. “Sometimes women exit the labor market completely.”

In fact, according to a 2020 AARP analysis, 3 out of 5 caregivers are women (61%). These statistics are higher in the Latino community and communities of color. One-third (36%) of Latino households have at least one family caregiver. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Hispanic caregivers are female. Furthermore, 82% of Latino caregivers say that at least one other unpaid relative or friend helps provide care.

Overall, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center analysis, even when women earn the same or more than their husbands, they still take on more household chores and caregiving responsibilities.

In the long run, this penalty also hampers career growth

As the new report explained, many mothers are passed over for promotions or opt to move to part-time or more flexible jobs for which they are overqualified in order to better balance their careers and childcare. In turn, this can significantly erode their lifetime earnings and career advancement.

“Sometimes (the motherhood penalty) comes from being passed over for promotions because of perceptions that they’re incapable, distracted, or not as committed to their jobs,” Rodgers explained.

This may explain, in part, why Latinas choose to start their own businesses rather than rely on full-time employment. Today, there are about two million Latina-owned businesses in the United States, a growth of more than 87% since 2007.

In fact, Latinas created businesses at six times the rate of all other groups before the pandemic. This included white men and Latinos.

That trend has continued, and strongly. After all, after years of facing gender inequalities in the workforce, Latinas have decided to hack the system and carve out their own path on their own.

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