The
Parent Gap
Previous research has
discovered a well-established “parent gap” where women with children earn 60
cents to every man’s dollar while women without children earn 94 cents for
every dollar earned by a man (Budig 2010). Additionally, mothers are much less
likely to be found in leadership roles and managerial positions. Clearly, the
gap that many are wont to refer to as the pay gender gap is actually a pay gap
between mothers and all other employees.
While it
may appear that intentional discrimination by employers is the cause, very
little evidence has shown this to be the case. Instead, what has been found is
that the discrepancy exists because of the choices made by mothers to spend
more time with their families and less time building their careers. These choices can be affected by a variety of
factors, yet the one I am most interested in is religious beliefs, specifically
those held by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
Research on members of the LDS church has shown that they are more likely to
support a traditional division of labor between the sexes than people who are
non religious and even those who belong to highly religious Christian
denominations (Carroll et al. 2000).
Pondering
upon this research led me to the question: How does parenthood affect the
careers of mothers and fathers differently, particularly among professionals of
the LDS faith?
Methods
Finding
the answers to my research question led me to conduct interviews with faculty
members at Brigham Young University, the largest religious university in the
United States, from the college of Family Home, and Social Sciences. I chose to
limit myself to professors within this domain from comparison purposes, because
education paths are more similar among the social sciences than they are with
other fields.
My questions began by asking about the interviewee’s career
path, and then asked about their family situation (such as age when married,
how many children he/she has, spouse’s education/career path). I then asked
about how the interviewees felt parenthood affected their careers, and what sacrifices
they had made for their families and for their careers. Lastly, I asked about
the role that religious beliefs played in the choices they made.
Findings
Among my
interviewees, I found that parenthood affected the careers of women in more
negative ways than it did men. In terms of their careers, mothers felt that
they had given up a great deal on behalf of their families. As an example, a
few mothers did not receive their PhDs until they were nearly forty, because
they had spent their twenties and early thirties raising their children. This
choice dramatically decreased both their earning potential and their chances
for advancing along the tenure track. Another woman, who is currently a mother
of a two-year-old, is confident that she could have published a great deal more
had she not become a mother.
The
fathers I interviewed felt their careers in some small ways had kept them from
their families. One father mentioned how he was unable to join his wife and
children for a summer vacation the previous year because of his work. Another father
talked about how he was often unable to get away from work in order to join his
family on their small outings, and expressed a wish that he could be there more
often. In contrast, one mother with young children adequately expressed the
view of many of the mothers I interviewed. She explained, “I figure out what my
family needs first, and then I fit my job in afterward.”
As a part of
their careers, women felt more cognitive dissonance than did men. Cognitive
dissonance is feeling uncomfortable or unsettled because of conflicting ideas
about who you should be versus who you are, and the cognitive dissonance these
mothers experienced was due mainly to their religious beliefs. These professors
had all felt pressure at some point to stay home and embrace their primary role
as nurturers. Surprisingly, almost every woman I interviewed emphatically
discussed that they were all doing what they felt was what God wanted them to do.
They believe they have a mission to complete and as part of that mission, they
needed to be working as a professor.
While parenthood plays an important role in these professors’ decisions, both male and female professor interviewed mentioned the importance of having a strong marriage. One mother has a handicapped son and she explained that it would have been impossible to cope with both her son and her career had her husband not been so incredibly selfless and supporting. This theme was also found among men. One professor cited his wife for helping him to complete his dissertation, and he said that without her he would not be where he is today. His wants to get her own PhD and this professor said. “After all she has done for me, you better believe that I am going to be there for her when it’s her turn.”
Why We
Care
At some
point in their lives, almost all of us will have family responsibilities, which
will likely become the most important aspects of our life. Concurrently, many
will have work responsibilities that play an important part in their day-to-day
lives. Yet employers often do little to ease the balance between these two
necessary responsibilities. The institutional set-up of workplaces needs to
change to reflect the varied duties of their employees to their families.
References
Budig, Michelle J. 2010. New evidence on the pay gap for women and mothers in management. Testimony
before U.S. Congressional Joint Economic Committee. September 28.
Carroll, Jason S., Steven T. Linford, Thomas B. Holman and
M. Busby. 2000. Marital and family orientations among highly religious young
adults: Comparing Latter-day Saints with traditional Christians. Review of Religious Research 42, no. 2
(December): 193-205.
Images via National Geographic
