Di Leo, Riccardo (2022) Mother's little helper : motherhood penalties and maternity leave provisions in UK academia. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Motherhood is widely believed to be an important factor slowing down the career progression of academic women, hence explaining the so-called “gender pay gap”.

In Chapter 1, we present a novel database that combines an original survey of women working in the UK higher education sector with data on the occupational maternity benefits offered by academic employers. This allows us to track childbearing experiences and employment histories simultaneously. We offer a portrait of academic mothers in the UK, and of how their experiences have evolved over the years. We also carry out an empirical analysis of the determinants of leave
uptake, showing that women’s employment status and family arrangements impact the types of maternity leave - paid or unpaid - being taken.

In Chapter 2, we investigate different dimensions of the motherhood penalty in UK academia, using our data. Being a mother does not impact salaries, yet slows down career progression. While exhibiting higher satisfaction rates towards the work environment, mothers are more likely to perceive their retribution as unfair with respect to male colleagues. We then explore factors mitigating the motherhood penalty: more generous maternity provisions are found to be associated with higher salaries. The same holds for longer childcare hours, and for an even distribution of responsibilities within the household. We also highlight the importance of a supportive work environment for mothers’ careers and wellbeing. Taken together, our findings suggest the necessity of a multi-faceted policy response to the motherhood penalties.

In Chapter 3, we explore more in detail the impact of motherhood on the productivity of academic mothers. Depreciation in productivity and broadly defined “human capital” associated to career breaks has in fact been found to be an important channel, especially in high-pay sectors, for the so-called “motherhood penalty”. We then investigate the relationship between motherhood, generosity of maternity pay and productivity. Our findings consistently show the existence of a motherhood penalty in productivity (but not in the quality of the output), and a robust, positive link between more generous maternity pay, i.e. more weeks with full salary replacement, and academic productivity, in terms of quantity and quality of research output, in the short-, but also in the long-term.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Maternity leave -- Great Britain, Women in higher education -- Great Britain, Working mothers -- Great Britain, Wages -- Working mothers -- Great Britain, Pay equity, Wages -- Women, Sex discrimination against women -- Great Britain
Official Date:	April 2022
Dates:	Date Event April 2022 UNSPECIFIED
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Economics
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Troeger, Vera ; Bove, Vincenzo
Sponsors:	Economic and Social Research Council ; Midlands Graduate School
Extent:	xv, 199 leaves : illustrations, charts
Language:	eng

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