The US Government Accountability Office has issued a new study showing that women still make less than men for doing the same job. On average, women today earn 81% of what their male counterparts earn while mothers specifically earn 79% of what males earn. The Joint Economic Committee calls this The Mom Bomb. (As a sidenote, men with children make MORE than their chilldless counterparts. Go figure.)
Are we surprised? No.
The biggest strikes against working moms are that typically they can't put in long hours like their childless counterparts might and with schools even more alert to illness after the H1N1 scare last year, kids are sent home at the first sign of a sniffle. Who generally has to leave work to tend to the child? Mom. If she's a single parent, she has no choice.
So, is this a fair tradeoff? Is the pay difference just the price we have to pay for having kids? Or is it an unfair discrimination based on attitude since working moms are doing the same job for less pay (and doing their second job at home)?
What do you think?
