Motherhood Penalty: The Expansion of Gender-Based Inequality in the Fertility Aspects

Abstract

Despite many years of campaigns fighting for womens rights, there is still a tremendous gap in realizing gender equality. In particular, the issue of fertility, which was a matter of benefit to the whole family and society, has increasingly become a severe social problem that highlights or exacerbates gender inequality. An item called motherhood penalty has been widely discussed in academia in recent years. It represents a issue that womens rights are damaged severely once they become mothers. Especially in the economic aspect, women face losses, having a difficulty in finding a job, promotion, and salary increases. Although having children enriches our society economically, women suffer financial consequences for doing so. Employers are less likely to recruit them than those without children. Even if they do, they often pay them a much less salary than men. Contrarily, men not only do not experience financial losses as a result of having children, but they also receive benefits known as the Fatherhood Premium by academics. It is not difficult to find that implicit sexism is implicit in fertility problems, and it is more prominent in the economic aspect. This study seeks to find the underlying mechanism and ways to solve the problem.