Parenthood and Job Quality: Is There a Motherhood Penalty in the UK?

Laura Jones (), Rose Cook () and Sara Connolly ()
Additional contact information
Laura Jones: Nesta
Rose Cook: King’s College London
Sara Connolly: University of East Anglia

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2023, vol. 170, issue 2, No 17, 765-792

Abstract: Abstract Current research recognises the role of parenthood in contributing to gender inequalities at work. Meanwhile, there is a growing interest in job quality. We contribute to both these debates by analysing differences in job quality by gender and parenthood status, using data from a nationally representative UK household survey. We develop a 12-indicator, multi-dimensional measure of job quality and use this to analyse the combination and distribution of job quality attributes by gender and parenthood status. Our analysis shows that women and mothers are under-represented in high quality jobs and over-represented in poor quality jobs. While some mothers sacrifice career prospects for flexibility, motherhood is not always associated with more flexibility, and job quality disadvantages are multi-faceted. Working part time is a strong driver of job quality differences, suggesting that reduced hours after motherhood impacts on job quality in addition to worsening women’s pay. Job quality gaps are larger for mothers of school-aged children, pointing to the additional constraints of managing work and childcare around the school day.

Keywords: Job quality; Motherhood penalty; Gender; Part time work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-023-03214-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:170:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-023-03214-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-023-03214-6

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().