‘Motherhood Penalty’ Affects Women With Or Without A Child, Experts Say

Aside from facing the uphill battle for equal pay in the workplace, the issue of "motherhood penalty" is also burdening women with or without a child. Experts said female workers are penalized for the mere possibility that they can bear a child.

Motherhood penalty is the term used to refer the systematic disadvantages encountered by working mothers in the workplace in terms of pay, benefits and perceived competence. According to experts, this may also affect women without a child.

They said that even the mere idea that a woman can get pregnant is preventing some companies to promote her into a higher position or accept her in the job. "A pregnancy penalty doesn't just hurt mothers or expectant women, married women or even childbearing women, it's a bias that's applied to all women," Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, told NBC News.

She added that employers at present are probably thinking that they are not safe until their female employees reach the menopausal age. Lisa Maatz, a policy adviser of the American Association of University Women, echoed Hartmann's statement. She said motherhood penalty is an institutionalized form of discrimination that is applicable to women with or without a child.

Maatz explained that motherhood penalty is already a part of the culture in the workplace and this has played a significant role in the decision-making process of companies. "Right now the assumptions about women's roles, as stereotypical as they may be, are driving decisions and those decisions disadvantage women," she disclosed.

Mary Ann Mason, a professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, said that motherhood penalty has made women to perceived pregnancy as a potential damage to their respective careers. Mason, who is also a co-director of the Center for Economics & Family Security, conducted a study in 2013 and found that majority of graduate students who are mothers or soon-to-be mothers are anticipating to get adjunct, non-tenured or temporary jobs after graduation.

While motherhood penalty has not been properly tackled at present, gender wage gap in the workplace has been slowly shrinking since 1970. According to Time, white women are now earning 79 cents to the white man's dollar. Black and Hispanic women are also bringing home 66 and 59 cents respectively.