How much does it really cost a woman to be a mother?

The third note from the Observatory for the Economic Empowerment of Women taught us this summer that mothers pay a significant financial and professional toll, simply because of their motherhood. What explains this?

A cost that begins even before becoming a mother

The cost of being a mother begins with pregnancy, or even before, when the “suspicion of maternity” weighs on women aged 25 to 40, when they are looking for work. In fact, the Rights Defender reports that 27% of women discriminated against at work were discriminated against in relation to pregnancy or maternity. Mothers are therefore twice as likely to be the target of discrimination at work than other women.

As the authors of the note from the Observatory for the economic emancipation of women point out, Lucile Peytavin AND Lucile Quillet, It’s not motherhood that hinders mothers’ careers, but sexism. In particular, they calculate the financial loss caused by maternity leave. Between a minimum wage and a high salary, this loss ranges from 5.2 to 46%! Fathers lose equal pay while on paternity leave.

For greater transparency on this topic, the association Parents and feministswho participated in the drafting of the note, asks the State for an official simulator that allows it to verify how much maternity, paternity or parental leave actually costs parents.

Wage loss may also be linked to the pregnant woman’s adjustment of working conditions (e.g. stopping night work) or to pre- and postnatal depression leading to inability to work. Furthermore, pregnancies can generate additional costs, such as maternity clothes, osteopathy sessions, nutritional supplements, etc.

Early childhood is expensive for mothers

Once your baby is born and your maternity leave is over, it’s time to take care of your child. But the shortage of childcare options is real: Nearly a third of childcare requests are rejected, and 1 in 5 parents (the vast majority of whom are mothers) care for their child alone because the lack of other childcare solutions.

In recent years the government has made announcements promising to address this concern, but there has been no concrete commitment. The government’s latest promise: to allocate a budget of 5 billion euros to the creation of 200,000 places in nursery schools by 2030.

While mothers reduce their working hours to take care of their children, fathers increase them. In the long run, the more children there are, the more the mother is penalized professionally. Parental leave is still subject to too low a pay, amounting to 428.71 euros for the complete cessation of working hours.

During these first three years of the child, before school, the gap between mothers and fathers widens. Having a child means 5 hours of housework more for women and 2 hours less for men. And this gap grows with each additional child. Fathers in particular avoid humiliating tasks and have more free time on average. In order to better understand the cost of this invisible unpaid work, which still mainly affects women and mothers, the Parents and Feminists association has created an invoice editing tool. It allows you to calculate the value of your household and parenting work.

Finally, If being a mother is expensive, being a single or separated mother is even more so. 84% of single-parent families have a woman as the head of the household and 90% of child support must be paid by fathers. They remain unpaid in 30-40% of cases.

How to rebalance the situation?

For Marie-Nadine Pragier, co-president of the collective PAF (For Feminist Parenting), what costs mothers the most is probably the obstacle to their career. “We are campaigning to take into account all the invisible inequalities that women suffer from. The career barrier is pernicious, because women don’t always realize it. There may be hazing upon returning to work, missed promotions due to maternity leave, part-time work, children’s days sick to ask.

Mothers often reduce their working hours because it is too heavy to take on all the responsibilities, and spouses do not do their part enough. Sometimes they tell themselves that they do it by choice. As the years pass, the impact on the economic situation of mothers is notable and worsens in the event of separation. We then realize that her economic situation is much less favorable than that of her ex-spouse, but it is difficult to fight and demand balance. »

Lucile Quillet, member of the Women’s Foundation’s Economic Emancipation Observatory and author of the essay The price to pay, how much do straight couples cost women (edited by Les Liens qui Libération), thinks so the greatest cost mothers bear is the money they will never receive, due to their motherhood. “ In the long term, the economic impact is considerable. This has repercussions on your income, unemployment contributions and, of course, your pension. definitely.

We often hear “ ah yes, but you should have thought, Lady!“… Gold, these changes are not always chosen, but many are endured, to compensate for the lack of places in nursery schools and make adaptation variable for the whole family (and society along the way). The collective interest comes before their economic interest. They often find themselves the only ones bearing the impact of parenthood on their lives. Not to mention the professional discrimination they may face. Men can have full, intact families and careers thanks to the professional, personal and economic sacrifices of women. »

“It would be less serious if men were also affected, society must take this moment of life into account and consider careers differently “, explains Marie-Nadine Pragier. So here’s the solution, but how to do it? “ It would be necessary, first of all”continues, “ strictly equivalent parental leave for each parent, of four months, with the same risk and cost. This leave should be paid, mandatory and non-transferable, to encourage fathers to take full advantage of it. Society must also play a role in this incentive, enhancing committed, active and positive fatherhood models. For the moment, a man who calls a sick child every day is frowned upon.

Secondly, the economic disadvantage suffered by mothers must be taken into account, rebalancing it with financial benefits, i.e. additional funding in terms of salaries and taxes. We must take into account the reality faced by almost all mothers who are penalized by having children. »

Lucile Quillet emphasizes the point: “ For being a mother to cost less for women, being a father should cost more for men. So that maternity leave is no longer perceived as a betrayal, that discrimination ceases and that work-life balance no longer exists” a women’s issue“, fathers must be considered equal parents to mothers: equally responsible, equally necessary… equally potentially absent. »

Equal leave, more childcare options, a new method of calculating alimony, but also a change of mentality in society, this is what the author suggests, so that motherhood stops costing women.

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