The phenomenon of a drop in earnings after childbirth, referred to in the literature as the “child penalty” or “motherhood penalty”, is not new, but new data allow for a better estimate of its scale in Germany. ZEW experts together with scientists from the Dutch University of Tilburg analyzed data from over 186,000 mothers from 1975 to 2021, using information from the German Federal Employment Agency and the Institute for Labor Market Research.
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Financial losses for German mothers. Analysts showed specific data
The authors of the report emphasize that the effects of having a first child depend on the mother's age. In absolute terms, the later a woman becomes a mother, the higher the financial costs, including: due to reduction of working hours.
At the same time in the long term women who give birth later return to the labor market faster and are able to rebuild their professional position. The situation of young mothers under thirty is completely different, as they often do not have promotions yet and have “dropped out” of the labor market after a break caused by motherhood.
It turned out that in the fourth year after giving birth, the average earnings of mothers were almost PLN 30,000 higher. euro lower than childless women of the same age. This is much more than previous estimates, which indicated a difference of approximately 20,000. euro.
“Because young mothers' earnings have no chance to increase, their relative losses are higher and show a clearly negative trend in the postpartum period. For this reason, after the birth of a child, they are often unable to make up for the gap in their careers,” says the report's co-author, Dr. Lukas Riedel from ZEW.
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The negative financial impacts have consequences throughout women's lives, including future pensions. According to the report's authors, this results from both the traditional family model established in Germany and the specificity of the social welfare system.
Despite numerous reforms, State support still does not fully meet the needs of mothers who want to work full-time. As a result, many of them decide to work part-time, which translates into lower salaries and lower retirement benefits in the future.
