Talk:Motherhood penalty

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bobadilla97, Leilanitran1.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Scott nielsen.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:13, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Seib.Emily, Lindsey Herzog, Elena Schuh, Gagliano.haley. Peer reviewers: Seib.Emily, Gagliano.haley.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:13, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed changes
I would like to expand and revise upon this article on Motherhood Penalty. I would specifically be focusing on the perceived cultural tension between mothers and workers as well as the bias, discrimination, and wage gap the results from that tension. This entails expanding on the “Wage penalty for motherhood” section as well adding sections that focus on gender discrimination in the workforce, specifically discrimination against mothers. I will look at different theories that have been proposed to explain the motherhood penalty like the status characteristic theory, normative discrimination, and descriptive and prescriptive stereotyping. I would add a section on the “Effects of the motherhood penalty” with subsections “Wage penalty for motherhood”, “Hiring penalty for motherhood”, and “Promotion penalty for motherhood”. The second main section would be “Causes of the motherhood penalty” with subsections of “Employer bias”, “Status characteristics theory”, “Normative discrimination”, “Descriptive and prescriptive stereotyping”. The final main section would be on “Motherhood vs. fatherhood”. With subsections on cases studies and findings including Michelle Budig’s and Shelley Correll’s studies. I would also add more links to other articles like inequality in the workplace, working mothers, wage gap, discrimination, glass ceiling, etc. in order to increase traffic to this article. I would appreciate any comments or feedback. Mmcolson (talk) 18:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Article Feedback
This article seems to be in great shape. The suggestions that I have are generally very minor things that hopefully will help as you move towards completion. First of all, does the motherhood penalty exclusively apply to women in the U.S.? If so, you might want to consider either removing the leave policies graph altogether or incorporate discussion as to what makes U.S. policies so different. I was surprised that you only had one economic theory listed when that was an entire subcategory. I would suggest either adding another economic theory or removing that subcategory altogether and just putting "Human capital theory" as a possible cause of the motherhood penalty.

I was confused by the section on status characteristic theory. It seems to imply that this status comes from a classification of respect, but then goes on to say that mothers are penalized for being low-status. It would be very helpful if this section was more clear: are mothers suffering because of their high status? The section on normative discrimination seems to contradict itself: in two successive sentences, it says that highly successful mothers are less likable than nonmothers and then that they are not any less likable than nonmothers. Clarification of wording there could make a significant difference in understanding.

As I suggested above, I found the leave policies section somewhat problematic. I would recommend having a greater discussion of the graph, or potentially combining it with the maternity leave subsection. That section is the only one that deals with countries other than the U.S., making it confusing. Combining it with maternity leave might make room for a discussion of the differences on maternity leave between different industrialized countries.

Great job!Allisonraven (talk)

Response to Feedback
Thank you so much for the feedback! The suggestions were very helpful and I will definitely make the appropriate changes. I agree with your comments on the economic theory section. As I was doing research I came across another economic theory, but is seemed very similar to the human capital theory that I decided to leave it out. However, I will go back and look at this theory again and see if there is a way and benefit to adding it in the article. If not I will take your suggestion and change the existing section title to human capital theory. I also appreciated your comments on clarity issues in the status characteristic theory. As a writer I found it hard to judge the clarity of the article because I have read a lot of information on the topic and therefore the sections make sense to me, so I’m glad that you brought these problem areas to my attention. As for the leave policy section, the motherhood penalty does apply to other countries. I think in order to fix this confusion I need to take a more wordly view and add more information about the motherhood penalty in other countries throughout the article. I hope that by doing this, the graph won’t seem confusing or out of place. Thank you again for the suggestions and I will begin incorporating your suggestions as I move forward. Mmcolson (talk) 04:38, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Feedback
First of all, sorry this feedback is late! Article is really interesting, though. You lay out the many aspects of the motherhood penalty and its consequences very clearly, and seem to maintain neutrality throughout the article (especially in the Causes of the Motherhood Penalty section). As said above, I agree that you should probably look into some other economic theories, maybe some that directly address the gender wage gap even if not through the Motherhood Penalty. You might also consider more clearly discussing where the theories (social and economic) come from, even though you do a good job of citing studies throughout the article. Overall, though, you did a really great job. Some fascinating statistics and discussion on the wage gap and the motherhood penalty - I enjoyed reading! Reillysolis (talk) 03:48, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Change Proposal
Something I would like to add to this article is I would like to expand on the discrimination of women in the workplace section and also the wage gap section. A good article that states many facts on the topic is http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/getting-job-there-motherhood-penalty. This article gives exact numbers in the wage gap and also gives reasonings as to why women are discriminated against in the work place. The second article that I will be citing is https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/upshot/the-gender-pay-gap-is-largely-because-of-motherhood.html. This article goes into depth explaining why women are paid less and also talks about hoe even women with higher education than men can still be paid less. The final article that I will be citing is https://www.nbcnews.com/better/careers/motherhood-penalty-can-affect-women-who-never-even-have-child-n548511. This article states that the motherhood penalty is not only for mothers. The motherhood penalty is experienced by all women because men just assume that they can do more because they are men. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scott nielsen (talk • contribs) 19:04, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Evaluation Step of Wiki Assignment

 * In looking over this article I read a lot of good content and feedback. When I look at revising the article and as an avid wikipedia user in the past. I personally feel as though in a general sense like the article is a little to long and appears daunting if someone wants a concise description of what motherhood penalty is. Part of this I think is due to the formatting of the article it is hard to pull out key details at a glance it is much more in a paragraph reading format. I also think there are some things that could be linked to other pages instead of re-describing them in this article, for example the economic theories all have there own wiki articles. I do like that it is not just directed to the US, although I think the other areas in the world need to be incorporated more throughout the article as they seem front loaded into the description paragraph as an after thought currently. I also think some of the facts stated are slightly outdate as of the last couple years. The beginning referred to the wage penalty a few times and as an overview I think that should be taken out or have more of the other penalties added, so not to confuse people that the only penalty or main penalty is wage. Overall, I think this has some good base content it just needs to be restructured and updated to be more applicable and appealing to a broader audience. Seib.Emily (talk) 03:50, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Omit unnecessary and biased content.
A finished Wiki article should avoid too much content and too many headings. Although there is a lot of information to be gathered about any given topic, especially one with content that can raise controversy such as the Motherhood penalty, narrowing down the content to what is most important is necessary. Some of the content given, such as the heading "economic theories" can be omitted from the article to reduce the number of headings and to shorten the article down to information that is clear and most important. For example, the "Economic theories" heading consists of two sentences alone that should either be elaborated in relation to the Motherhood penalty or omitted altogether. Currently the content under this heading is about the general topic of economic theories and doesn't have much importance in relation to the Motherhood penalty. Copied from Motherhood penalty: "An audit study also showed that prospective employers were less likely to call back mothers for interviews than non-mothers." This sentence comes from the introduction paragraph of the Motherhood penalty article. Because of previous supporting information that is similar to this, adding this sentence seems unnecessary. It also appears to attempt to sway the reader to a conclusion because correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, especially in this context where multiple other factors could lead to the fact that a mother is not receiving a call back from an employer. The article itself is very interesting and contains a lot of good content that touches on so many aspects of the Motherhood penalty. As I read the article though, I begin to feel that some of the content listed becomes biased and is almost supportive of the fact that the Motherhood penalty exists. I feel the purpose of the article begins to shift from a neutral tone that merely explains the topic of the disadvantages mothers face in the workplace to a general and stereotyped view of the topic. Gagliano.haley (talk) 00:35, 27 February 2018 (UTC)Gagliano.haley — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gagliano.haley (talk • contribs) 00:23, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Covid-19 and Visuals
This is a well-rounded article that reads well. You clearly state each topic you intend discuss in the opening paragraph, and provide reliable sources from academic journals and government websites. Have you considered updating the article with a section discussing Covid-19's affect on mothers? It would be interesting to learn how the pandemic affected single mothers versus mothers with familial/spousal support, and if the option to remote work improved their work-life balance. Does the latter improve the discrimination they face in the hiring process and advancements in the workforce? Lastly, if graphs detailing statistical data presented in the article are available, it would be visually appealing and easier to understand the information being presented. EpsomSavant (talk) 22:01, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2013 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:57, 2 January 2023 (UTC)