A recent study published by The Economist sheds light on how parenthood impacts the careers of women and men and reveals the difference in “family responsibilities” according to gender: motherhood hurts women’s careers. Here are some key figures from this survey, analyzed by the EVE Webmagazine team.
Having children: a professional obstacle for some and an asset for others?
This study was conducted jointly by researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) and Princeton University across 134 countries. It reveals distinct effects of parenthood on career depending on gender.
The study shows that on average, 24% of women leave the labor market the year their first child is born and that 10 years later, 15% haven’t returned. In France, as in most wealthy countries, the dropout rate is higher during the early years of a child’s life, which is somewhat explained by the high cost of childcare. During the first year of a baby’s life, women’s professional activity drops by approximately 37%. In other countries, such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa, the arrival of a child has little impact on women’s activity rates, since most of them leave the labor market when they get married.
Conversely, men’s careers remain constant, and they even put in more hours after the birth of a child. An INSEE study from 2020 shows that employed or formerly employed women aged 25 to 49 with family responsibilities (one or more children under 15) are less likely to be employed (76%) than those without (84%), while men with family responsibilities are more likely to have a job (91%) than childless men (82%). Interestingly, the study by
The Economist shows that in developed countries, 80% of the gap between the labor market participation rate of men and women can be explained by this drop-off of women after the birth of the first child, while in the poorest countries, motherhood only explains 10% of this gap.
These data seem to indicate that the stereotypical organization of social functions persists, still too often positioning men as “breadwinners” and placing the burden of balancing “housewife” and “working girl” on women.
Furthermore, the inequalities in employment between men who are fathers and those who are not raise questions about a possible “parental bonus” for men, which our EVE and Donzel Report had already pointed out (page 40), while women pay a penalty in terms of career opportunities. Several hypotheses explain this phenomenon: unconscious internalization by employers that the partner of a young father will “slow down” and that it’s therefore a good time to entrust the man with new responsibilities; the prevalence “good family man” stereotype, who is considered serious, stable and reliable compared with the common idea that a “young mother” is more emotional and prioritizes family life; or the effects of salary differences on the financial decisions of households encouraging couples to choose, upon the arrival of a child, to prioritize the career of the higher-paid partner (most often the man).
Conditions vary for working parents depending on their social background
The INSEE study teaches us that unemployment rates vary depending on the sector and the social milieu. The greatest gap is among female workers: 54% of those with family responsibilities are employed, compared to 74% of those with none. Among executives, 90% of women with one or more children are employed, compared to 94% of those without.
Parenthood also has a significant influence on time management among working women. 45% of employed women aged 25 to 49 who have family responsibilities say that being a parent has had an impact on their professional situation and 16% say that it has led them to reduce their working hours.
Part-time work is an important point of reference regarding the contrasting experiences of men and women with children. Overall, in 2024, 26.8% of women worked part-time compared to 8.7% of men. But there are differences among social categories. INSEE reports that in 2019, part-time work was done by 21% of female executives (83% of whom did so for family reasons) and 25% of female workers. Among men, only 2% of managers (57% for family reasons) and 5% of manual workers work part-time. Yet this recourse to part-time work, which is 10 times more common among mothers than fathers, has significant consequences on income levels in the long term. INED reports that the arrival of the first child leads on average to a 30% loss of income in the long term.
Towards a renewal of professional equality policies
These recent data highlight the need to implement comprehensive equality policies that simultaneously address the disparities in status between women and men and between advantaged and less advantaged populations.
Several avenues need to be explored: the transformation of work-life balance policies, whose effects on reducing inequalities are more or less conclusive; the renewed fight against stereotypes and decision-making biases in order to address the core of gendered role assignments; the normalization of male parenthood to the same extent as the generalization of women’s participation in the workforce; the deployment of talent development strategies that include all populations, and not just managers, the list is long.
