EMPLOYMENT Working moms sacrifice wages

The mommy wage gap is real, but is it fair?
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL STAR TRIBUNE
Meghan Cooper made it to store manager in the Gap chain of clothing shops. Then, about five months ago, she asked for a demotion. The birth of her second child convinced her that she wanted a stable, 40-hour work week with no chance of overtime.
She took a job as an assistant manager at a Gapkids, and a 21 percent pay cut. Cooper has just become part of a "mommy wage gap" in America, a gap so clear and deep, says Washington labor attorney Joan Williams, that it has created "an economy of mothers and others."
There's growing sentiment that behind that gap, as in Cooper's case, are all the compromises mothers make for the benefit of their families. There's growing disagreement over whether that's fair.
But for now, all this is driving a push for more workplace flexibility.
New bill
A new bill in Congress would let workers bank up to 160 hours of overtime a year -- that could be used, among other things, for family leave.
The "mommy wage gap" concept is based on evidence that young childless women have virtually closed in on men and left behind young working mothers. Labor statistics -- on all full-time workers at age 30 -- show childless women advancing to 95 percent of men's pay vs. 70 percent in the 1980s. For working mothers, that figure went from 60 to 75 percent.
Some contend that mothers are simply seeing the effects of a "lifestyle choice" -- having a family -- that can lead them to leave work for a while, work fewer hours, or ask for accommodations such as flexible schedules. It's basic fair-market accounting, they say.
In fact, a recent report to the nonprofit Independent Women's Forum in Washington says that when all of those choices are factored in, an "equally qualified" woman now earns 95 to 98 cents to the man's dollar.
"Men who make the choice not to take time off sacrifice time with their families," said forum spokeswoman Margaret Carroll. "To think that women's wages ... when they've taken a few years out of the work force and then prefer jobs with flexible hours ... should be as high as men's who have been working nonstop in a field for 20 years is unfair."
Still seen differently
However, advocates for pay equity say those differences don't account for the whole wage gap. They say that some employers still see mothers as less capable and not as hard-working.
"The main economic theory is that mothers don't work as hard, that they're saving their energy for home," said Melissa Binder, coauthor of a wage study published in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review in January. "Well, we are working just as hard, and all we need is a little flexibility."
She and others argue that mothers' pay won't catch up until employers stop penalizing mothers' need for flexibility, or fathers start doing more than their average 30 percent of the family child care.