By Rebecca Pollard Pierik

After the birth of her son, Susan Strate ’94 took an assistant-level position—even though she had been senior management before. “This change was by choice,” says Strate, now a financial and administrative assistant at UMass Amherst’s Donahue Center. “I was seeking a job that carried less stress and responsibility while my son was an infant so that I could be more available to my family.”

Strate is not alone in facing tough choices about returning to work after having children. According to UMass Amherst sociology professor Michelle Budig, who studies work and families, many women leave the workforce for a time or work part-time so they can care for children—and this comes at a price. In a study published in 2001, Budig and colleague Paula England found that American mothers’ hourly wages drop seven percent for each child. Budig and England show that about one-third of this penalty can be explained by time away from work.

“When a mother works part-time or leaves the workforce for a period of time, she loses experience and seniority compared with women who keep working,” Budig explains. “So her earning potential drops.” This so-called “mommy tax,” which also refers to lost earnings from exiting the labor force, can reduce women’s lifetime earnings and even push some families into poverty—especially families headed by single moms.

“We know the wage penalty for motherhood exists,” says Budig. “Now we want to know what can be done about it. Is any other country doing a better job?” With a grant from the National Science Foundation, Budig and UMass Amherst sociologst Joya Misra are collecting data on work-family policies in 22 countries to find answers to that and related questions.

For two years, the researchers have charted a range of policies that impact working families in each country in their study, looking at such factors as school scheduling, parental leave, and childcare cost and availability. Using large national databases, they are analyzing how these nations compare in terms of employment, wages, and poverty rates for men and women.

The researchers don’t plan to publish results of the study until later this year, but their early hypotheses are intriguing. For instance, it may be that Germany’s generous two- to three-year paid maternity leaves (the envy of many American moms) actually boost the mommy tax and poverty rates among mothers to rates higher than those in the United States because they take women out of the workforce for years.

Sweden’s strategy may come the closest to leveling the playing field. There, both mothers and fathers receive shorter paid parental leaves. And an abundance of high-quality state-sponsored childcare gives both mothers and fathers equal opportunity to get back to work.

As for American moms, federal regulations leave important policies up to employers—paid maternity leaves, paid sick days, provided childcare. In other words, it’s catch-as-catch-can, says Budig.