Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Pay gap between childless women and women-with-children

Statistics Canada released a study today about the earnings of women who have and don't have children (the release on the Daily, the full text of the study is available on Perspectives on Labour and Income).

From the summary of the study:


On average, the earnings of women with children were 12% less than those of women without children, and this gap increased with the number of children: with one child, the gap was 9%; with two children, it was 12%; and with three of more children, 20%.

The study also looked at the differences between single mothers, singletons without sprouts, and partnered women with children. And yes, it was worse to be a single mother:

A comparison between single mothers and childless single women showed that the average earnings gap was close to 20%. But for married/common-law mothers versus childless women in couples, the gaps was only about 10%.

Other interesting findings from the study included that the less time off with children (a gap) could positively influence earnings, as well as delaying a family.

Since so many librarians are women, I thought the study would be interesting; maybe we should just be interested in the results since so many of us know women.

We should also be interested in this study, especially in light of this post that I saw on Appetite for Equal Rights, Bad economy causing women to get naked.

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