Mother’s Day falls on May 11th this year: a day of celebration, handwritten cards, flowers, and shared meals. However, behind this lies a persistent reality: Mothers, especially mothers who are women of color, are consistently undervalued and continue to face significant wage gaps. These disparities show up in terms of what they earn and what they don’t.
The wage gap between mothers and White, non-Hispanic men in the United States is substantial, with working mothers earning less than fathers and women without children (a.k.a. the motherhood penalty). Employed mothers only earn 62.5 cents for every dollar a working father earns.1 Mothers who work full-time, year-round, earn 71 cents for every dollar a dad makes. Importantly, mothers of color experience significantly larger wage gaps than White men and even White mothers. Black mothers earned 51.3 cents, and Latina moms only earned 41 cents for every dollar paid to White, non-Hispanic fathers.2
The motherhood penalty is one of the most significant factors contributing to the gender pay gap.3 When mothers are underpaid, it has lasting implications for their families’ financial well-being. Lower wages mean less money for childcare, housing, education, and health care. Over a lifetime, the wage gap costs mothers hundreds of thousands of dollars, impacting their ability to save, build wealth, and even retire.4
However, the gender pay gap is only one piece of the inequality puzzle. Women who are mothers also shoulder a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work, which is neither acknowledged in wages nor counted in GDP. They are tasked with more domestic responsibilities (often twice the household tasks fathers do) that further prevent them from accessing paid work and career growth.5
In 2024, labor force participation among mothers continued to vary significantly. Married mothers continued participating at lower rates (72.3%) than unmarried mothers (77.7%). However, married fathers remained more engaged in the labor force (94.3%) than unmarried fathers (89.4%).6 Unemployment increased modestly across the board, rising to 3.6% for mothers. Regarding full-time employment, fathers remained more likely than mothers to work full time (95% vs.79%).7
Addressing the wage gap and unpaid labor for mothers is necessary for equal pay, supporting working mothers, and promoting equity in the workforce. This means implementing strategies and policies that support equitable hiring practices, paid parental leave for all genders, affordable childcare options, and addressing the root biases and oppressions contributing to pay disparities.
This Mother’s Day, let’s go beyond appreciation and advocate for structural change:
- Support pay transparency policies that require employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings.8
- Ban the use of salary history in hiring, which perpetuates past discrimination and keeps folx in the cycle of underpay.
- Create an organizational culture that values results rather than long hours at work.
- Implement flexible work strategies (remote work, flex hours) without penalizing mothers for utilizing them.
- Remove biases in performance review documents and be transparent about promotion practices.
- Push for paid family leave and affordable childcare so that mothers don’t have to choose between their paycheck and their children.
As we celebrate Mother’s Day this year, let’s value the labor mothers do: paid and unpaid!
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Footnotes
- National Women’s Law Center (2024). Motherhood Wage Gap for Mothers Overall. Retrieved from https://nwlc.org/resource/motherhood-wage-gap-for-mothers-overall/ ↩︎
- Institute for Women’s Policy Research (2024). Mothers Equal Pay Fact Sheet. Retrieved from https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Mothers-Equal-Pay-Fact-Sheet-2024.pdf ↩︎
- Institute for Women’s Policy Research (2024). Motherhood Is Hard—Pay Penalties Make It Harder. Retrieved from https://iwpr.org/motherhood-is-hard-pay-penalties-make-it-harder/ ↩︎
- Glynn, S. J. (2019). Breadwinning mothers continue to be the U.S. norm. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/breadwinning-mothers-continue-u-s-norm/ ↩︎
- Gender Equity Policy Institute (2024). The Free-Time Gender Gap: How Unpaid Care and Household Labor Reinforces Women’s Inequality. Retrieved from https://thegepi.org/the-free-time-gender-gap/ ↩︎
- Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024). Employment Characteristics of Families – 2024.Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/famee.pdf ↩︎
- Ibid ↩︎
- Marfice, C. (2024). Pay transparency laws: A state-by-state guide [Updated 2025]. Retrieved from https://www.rippling.com/blog/pay-transparency-laws-state-by-state-guide ↩︎