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There’s a concept I often point to when asked why I work in advocacy for moms.

The “motherhood penalty” is a term for the systemic disadvantages women face in the workplace and throughout society simply because they are mothers. And while most people aren’t too familiar with the phrase, it captures something fundamentally broken that moms already feel deeply. We’ve seen it up close, from lost wages to diminished career advancement to reduced retirement benefits.

Putting a name on this phenomenon gives us something to fight.

This edition of The First Word is dedicated to building a better understanding of the motherhood penalty — how it affects all moms, not just moms employed in the workforce, and why it’s at the root of so many of the changes we’re fighting for.

 
 
The Motherhood Penalty Spares No One

You might have seen the motherhood penalty make the rounds recently on your social media feeds, thanks to an article from The New York Times and an accompanying video that features moms at all stages of life.

It hits hard, watching these women relate how the motherhood penalty affected their aspirations, their incomes, and their long-term economic security.

If you’re like me, you probably can’t make it through the video without tearing up. It’s truly worth a watch.

The New York Times

There’s a moment in the video when one mom sums up when the motherhood penalty started to sink in:

“Wow, so this is it? So because I decided to take this path — because I decided to be a mother — this is it for me? I have no protections?”

According to the National Women’s Law Center, mothers earn just 74 cents for every dollar earned by fathers. It’s even worse for Black and Latina mothers. Let’s be clear: That’s not just the gender wage gap at play. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that 15 years after graduating from college, women who have children make 11% less than women who don’t.

That data tells a powerful story, but it doesn’t reveal the whole picture. The more you dig, the more you realize this is a problem that affects all moms, whether they’re currently in the workforce or not.

Two Paths, Same Penalty

Moms who choose to stay home understand that they’re leaving income behind, but what’s hidden is the value of the unpaid labor they do — you know, the things that keep households and entire communities chugging along. That work doesn’t show up in most economic data, but it’s estimated that if these moms were compensated for the work they do, they’d earn an annual salary of more than $145,000. 

And it’s not just lost wages in the short term. The current system provides no long-term safety net for these stay-at-home moms. Because they aren’t paying into employee 401(k) accounts or earning Social Security credits the way that their breadwinning partners might, they don’t have the same retirement security. Some realize far too late that they’re entirely dependent on their marriages to afford their retirement years — and, as the Atlantic poignantly documented, these women are vulnerable to falling into poverty should their marriage end.

For moms in the workforce, the motherhood penalty is just as pernicious. Most employed mothers I know have stories of implicit and explicit bias. Some employers view the very prospect that women might have children as a reason not to invest in them as employees.

And the wage losses once they become moms are well documented — a University of Massachusetts Amherst study found that a woman loses 4% of her salary every time she has a child. (Fathers gain 6% per kid, which some call the “fatherhood premium.” So that’s fun…) 

But on top of the wage losses are inflexible policies and impossible trade-offs, like choosing between work and missing a recital or a school event. Return-to-work mandates leave no wiggle room for moms. Every time a child gets sick we find ourselves scrambling for child care or taking unpaid leave.

Combined with lower earnings, the cost of child care puts moms in a corner. As one mom in The New York Times video put it, “All I’m doing is working to try to pay for this daycare center.” It’s no wonder many leave their careers behind.

Our Country Is Failing Moms

Taken altogether, the motherhood penalty is enough to knock the wind out of you.

How is it possible that, in 2025, in the wealthiest nation in the world, that we put up with structural deficiencies that penalize women who have children? And while this phenomenon isn’t unique to the U.S., it’s more pronounced here than anywhere else.

We’re the only wealthy nation in the world that doesn’t guarantee a single week of paid maternity leave at the federal level. The U.S. is also embarrassingly behind when it comes to the access and affordability of child care — a problem that is getting worse fast as child care now outpaces the cost of housing in all 50 states.

And while we’ve seen how Social Security doesn’t cover stay-at-home moms, other nations provide retirement benefits to unpaid caregivers — something the Social Security Administration itself said our country should emulate back in 2011.

The pace of progress in America is neither fast enough nor is it keeping up with the rest of the world. That’s why I do this work. That’s why we built Moms First.

Every single issue we work on — from paid leave to child care to equal pay to changing the way we value moms in our economy and our society as a whole — these are all things that can break us free from the motherhood penalty.

Understanding the state of play forces you to realize that these benefits aren’t “nice to haves.” They’re essential — not just for economic justice and gender equality, but for the well-being of the family itself.

 
I want to hear from you.

The New York Times just showed us how powerful it is to see moms share their own experiences with the motherhood penalty, so I want to hear from you.

Tell us how the motherhood penalty has affected your life, your career, your family. 

SHARE YOUR STORY

In Case You Missed It…

I was recently profiled by Spread the Jelly in a piece called “Recoding the American Dream”, and I’m so grateful for the chance to share why I started Moms First — and why this work feels more urgent than ever.

The story dives into my own experience as a mom navigating impossible trade-offs and how that led me to step back from the career ladder I had worked so hard to climb. It also explores what we’re building through Moms First: a cultural and policy reckoning with the motherhood penalty — that invisible, systemic force that punishes moms whether we stay at home or try to stay in the workforce.

It’s a fitting follow-up to the New York Times video on the motherhood penalty we shared above — because both pieces make one thing clear: moms don’t need to be fixed. The system does.

A huge thank you to Spread the Jelly for highlighting the voices of moms and helping to elevate this movement. I hope you’ll give it a read.

Check out what people are saying about Moms First in the news:

Thanks for sharing a few minutes of your day with me. And as always, pass along this email to your networks — raise awareness around an issue so many moms have internalized and help put a name on it, so we can fight the motherhood penalty together.

 
Here’s to breaking the cycle,
Reshma Saujani