Roman is now eight months old.

I've been back to work for a few months now. Back in meetings, back in my inbox, back on investor calls. 

I’m fortunate because I’m my own boss. I’m building my own businesses, and the only person accountable for the success or failure of those businesses is me.

But before the baby, I did a lot of research on how a baby can impact a woman’s career. Like most mothers, I was excited about welcoming a child into the world, but I was scared about what it might mean for my career. 

For women building their careers, especially if they’re working for someone else, the numbers I kept seeing were alarming and clear: people evaluating women when they have kids are quietly revising their assessment of their value downward. Nobody (usually) says anything out loud. But the research on what happens to women the moment they disclose a pregnancy, or simply exist as a mother in a professional environment, is unambiguous.

That is the motherhood penalty, and women experience it before their kid is even born.

Here’s what the research shows.

Harvard Kennedy School's Gender Action Portal ran controlled hiring studies where the only variable between candidates was parental status. Mothers were recommended starting salaries of $139,000. Non-mothers with identical qualifications were recommended $151,000. Fathers got $152,000. Same resume. Same experience. 

Mothers in those studies were rated 10% lower on competency and 12% lower on commitment, compared to non-mothers with identical files. They were 6 times less likely to be recommended for hire at all.

The penalty arrives before the first day of leave.

Bankrate's analysis of 2024 earnings data puts the median salary for full-time working mothers at $56,680. Full-time working fathers: $76,388. A 35% gap, and it is wider than it was in 2023, wider than it was in 2022. We’re not solving this problem. It’s getting worse.

Over 30 years, that gap totals more than $591,000.

According to Glassdoor data reviewed by Fortune, the gender pay gap at career entry is 12%, mostly explained by role and industry selection. At 10 years of experience it grows to 19%. At 30 years, 25%. The gap accelerates through the day a woman announces a pregnancy.

Women who delayed motherhood earned between $495,000 and $556,000 more over their careers than those who became mothers earlier. The difference runs the length of a career.

Then there’s the fatherhood bonus.

While mothers take the pay cut, fathers collect a premium.

Full-time fathers earn 25% more than childless men, roughly $76,388 versus $61,308 per year. Having a child is a financial asset for men and a financial liability for women, simultaneously, in the same household. Over 30 years, that bonus adds up to more than $400,000 in additional earnings for fathers compared to their childless male peers.

The mechanism is employer bias, and it runs in both directions at once. The same hiring managers who assume a mother is distracted assume a father is stable and committed. Research published by the American Bar Association found that mothers' salary raises and promotions lag behind fathers' and childless colleagues' from the point of their first child forward, and that pattern has not materially improved in decades.

Realistic ways to attack this problem.

Yes, the data is clear, but this outcome doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, most of the women CEO’s in Fortune 500’s are mothers. I cover many of them in my free Women Founder Book.

I’m also not going to sit here and tell you how the system needs to change. That’s true, but it’s not helpful when you’re expecting a baby and you’re thinking about your livelihood. Broader change takes time, but there are real, tactical things you can do in the moment to advocate for yourself. Here’s what I’d do:

Lock in your compensation before you announce. If you are pregnant or planning to be, and a raise or performance review is on the horizon, have that conversation now if you can. Salary decisions made while you are visibly pregnant or on leave happen with the bias already baked in. Once the baby is a reality in the room, you are being evaluated differently. The best time to negotiate is before that variable enters the equation.

Before you leave, get the return terms in writing. What is your title when you come back? What projects are you returning to? What does the promotion timeline look like? "We'll figure it out when you're back" is how careers quietly derail. A manager who genuinely intends to hold your role and your trajectory will have no problem putting that in writing before you go.

When you return, make the first ask. Come back with a one-pager: what you delivered before leave, what you're taking on now, and a specific title or compensation target for the next review cycle. Do not wait to be noticed. The ask made in month one carries more weight than the ask made in month six after you've re-established yourself as the person who doesn't ask.

When an offer comes in low, push back with the data. You now know that mothers are recommended starting salaries averaging $12,000 less than non-mothers with identical qualifications, in studies where qualifications were the only variable. "I'd like to understand how this number was benchmarked" is a legitimate question. So is naming the number you want and asking what it would take to get there. You are not being difficult. You are correcting for a bias the research says is almost certainly present.

Above all else, don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself. I’ll say it again: you are not being difficult. You are negotiating.

Hit reply and tell me: did you know the motherhood penalty was this significant? Has it shown up in your own career? I read every single response.

Jenny

P.S. If this landed, forward it to a woman in your life who is expecting, just returned from leave, or heading into a salary negotiation.

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