Mothers generally earn less than women who have not had children.
Mothers will earn about half a million dollars less than childless women over their entire working lives and half the lifetime earnings of fathers.
This statistic comes from a report by AMP and the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling in Canberra. Rebecca Cassells co-wrote the report, She Works Hard For The Money, which says the presence of children is "highly influential" in determining men's and women's earnings.
She says the average lifetime earnings of a man with children would be about $2.5 million, compared with $1.3 million for a woman with children.
If they both spend their lives childless, men and women will earn nearly the same amount. So, while the gender wage gap may be closing for generations X and Y, the family gap is alive and well.
Cassells says: "When you put children into the equation it shows men will earn more because there is a bigger incentive for them to earn and get ahead, because they are providing for a family.
"Women with children don't have the [same] labour force attachment. Often they work part-time and they have substantial periods out of the labour force."
About 72 per cent of part-time jobs in Australia are held by women. Cassells says mothers frequently choose flexible working conditions over money, although there is no quantifiable evidence for this assertion.
Jackie Cook, the director of Priorities, a recruitment and training firm specialising in flexible employment, agrees.
She says women with children often "take time out or step down from the full-time, seven-to-seven-type hours, in order to accommodate their other priorities. Often they will seek roles that are way below their capability and therefore there is less remuneration. They know the reality is that you can't be paid $200K and leave the office every day at 5pm." She says doing so would mean working through the night at home.
Cook says women wanting to go part-time or take a break from work while their children are small can always go back to their careers successfully later.
"It takes a little bit of extra work and effort but invariably they'll get back to where they were," she says.
Trish Crews, a mother of two from Sydney, is a perfect example. Crews juggled her young family with a part-time job at the Parramatta Leagues Club and later, the National Rugby League (NRL) for six years.
"On the three days I was in the office, I almost did five days' work," says Crews, who, like many working mums, spent many an unpaid hour catching up at night.
Although most of Crews's part-time wage was spent on child care and road tolls, the financial sacrifice and commitment to her career paid off when she was offered her dream job in January.
Crews achieved a coup by becoming the first female director of the NRL, heading up their community relations department and winning the higher salary that accompanies a director's position.
And although Crews is proof that part-time working mums can climb ladders and achieve better pay in the long term, she illustrates another reason mothers earn less than women without children: senior roles and the fatter pay packets that accompany them are rarely offered part-time.
"(NRL boss) David Gallop said he really couldn't justify having a part-time senior manager and I understood that totally," says Crews, who now works full-time.
Fortunately, Gallop supports Crews's need to maintain flexibility as the primary carer of her two young daughters.
"He said: 'I don't care where you are as long as the job gets done,"' she says.
Cook says fathers with working wives, like Gallop, make the best employers for mums because 'they get it'.
She advises mothers to target companies that support flexible working arrangements and to "be bold" when negotiating remuneration.
"Always put the business case forward. Put yourself, as you would have before you had kids, in your boss's position.
"State your case and say: 'This is what I can do,"' she says.
Both Crews and Cook agree that if you are asking an employer to be flexible, you have to be flexible as well. Give and take is paramount.
"You may have to compromise on a few of the what, where, hows, whens and how much," Cook says, adding that you shouldn't assume you are at a disadvantage just because you are a mother with responsibilities. "Sometimes we are our own worst enemies."
For more salary advice visit mycareer.com.au/salary-centre.
YOUR RIGHTS
Women who believe they are being treated unfairly at work because of their child-care responsibilities, or their part-time or flexible work status, can argue that they are being discriminated against because of their gender and make a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
GOOD CHOICE, MADAM
Go to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency's website for a list of organisations recognised as EOWA Employers of Choice for Women. See www.eowa.gov.au.
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