Articles

I never really understood the phrase “the motherhood penalty” until I lived it. It sounded like one of those abstract feminist concepts, something you might read about in a policy paper or hear mentioned in a debate. But when I had my first child, the phrase took on a very real, very personal meaning. Suddenly, I felt like my career, my earnings, and even my sense of self had been hit with a price tag simply because I became a mother.

Unpaid work, cooking, cleaning, caring, volunteering, emotional labour, is the unacknowledged foundation of daily life. It sustains families, communities, and economies, yet remains invisible in national statistics, undervalued by policymakers, and disproportionately borne by women.