The true cost of motherhood for women

If you knew that having a child would decrease the amount of money you made over your lifetime by six percent, would you still do it? How about if it dented your lifetime earnings by 24 percent?

That’s the question raised by a paper from Harvard University’s David Elwood, Columbia University’s Elizabeth Ty Wilde, and New York University’s Lily Batchelder. The researchers tried to determine if there’s an economic cost to women who have children, and if so, whether that cost is affected by the skill level of the women or the age at which they have kids. The results, in contrast to earlier research on the topic, are stark: High-skilled women pay a huge penalty, in terms of earnings, for their little bundles of joy. And for those women, there’s good economic reason to postpone motherhood: The longer high-skilled women wait to have kids, the smaller their economic sacrifice becomes.

Specifically:

• Low-skilled women don’t get very big raises, and having kids does little to change that.The so-called wage trajectories (think of a line graph showing a worker’s wages growing over time) of low-skilled women are much flatter than those of high-skilled women. Having children didn’t change those trajectories very much. 
• For high-skilled women, kids spell the end of raises. High-skilled women have steep wage trajectories. Those trajectories flatten out almost precisely at the moment they have children. 
• Low-skilled women don’t seem to make their lost wages back. Ten years after having children, low-skilled women have wages that are six percent lower than their counterparts. 
• High-skilled women don’t make that money back, either. Ten years after having children, high-skilled women have wages that are 24 percent lower than their counterparts. 
• Becoming a parent seems to have no effect on men’s wages.  

These figures do allow for the fact that many women take a temporary break from the labor force after having kids. The mothers in this study are only compared to other women with an identical amount of work experience. Even women who take only the medically-necessary maternity leaves and go back to full-time work at their old jobs suffer a dramatic loss in wages.

Unexpectedly Harsh

Why did this study find such dramatic differences in the wages of mothers and others, when other studies have found only single-digit differences?

• This study looks at wage growth, not absolute wages. So it looks at how quickly women’s salaries were growing before they had kids, and then looks at what happens to that growth afterwards. This is made possible by using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. That survey followed 12,686 people from 1979, when they ranged in age from 14 to 22, to 2006, when they ranged in age from 41 to 49.
• The researchers say women who do not have children are generally on a flatter wage trajectory that women who eventually become mothers, even before anyone has kids. Of women who don’t have kids, the researchers write: “On average, these women clearly are not similar to those who do indeed bear children.” So comparing women who have children to those who don’t ignores the fact that women who eventually have children have been on a different wage path than their childless counterparts for years.
• This study uses scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which all NLSY79 participants took, as a proxy for skill. Using this test, rather than educational achievement, lets the researchers include women with very high aptitudes who may not have completed their education because they became mothers at a young age.

Why would high-skilled women pay such big economic price for having children, especially if they return to full-time work immediately afterward?

6 Ways to Look and Feel 20 Years Younger

Science-based anti-aging strategies can help you turn back the clock by up to two decades—without surgery, reports a new book, 20 Years Younger, by fitness guru Bob Greene, Oprah Winfrey’s personal trainer, and a team of experts. The coauthors are Beverly Hills dermatologist Harold Lancer, Tufts University nutritionist Diane McKay, Ph.D. and Ronald Kotler, MD, medical director of Pennsylvania Hospital Sleep Disorders Center.

The book’s rejuvenating program is based on four “pillars” designed to help readers shed stress, decrease or erase wrinkles, boost mental sharpness, and rev up energy. According to the authors, incorporating these pillars—the right nutrition,exercise, skin care and adequate sleep—in your life may slow down the effects of aging, so you look and feel younger than your true age. Here’s a look at six anti-aging lessons that I learned from the program: 

1. Select superfoods. Certain nutrient-dense foods can reduce the risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer and other chronic diseases. Among those that Greene and his team recommend are blueberries, almonds, sweet potatoes, and olive oil. They also advise covering half your plate with brightly colored fruits and vegetables, which are packed with antioxidants and micronutrients, a strategy that’s helped me shed 22 pounds since these foods are also filling. Recent studies find that berries lower the threat of developing high blood pressure, Parkinson’s disease and dementia, while nuts and olive oil both help ward off heart disease, the leading killer of Americans.

2. Limit yourself to 1,700 calories a day. Eating less is one of the best ways to extend life, since all too many of us dig our graves with a knife and fork: Up to half of heart disease cases, one-third of cancer cases, and up to 90 percent oftype 2 diabetes cases are linked to excess weight. Conversely, populations with a low-calorie diet have the world’s highest rates of centenarians. In Okinawa, Japan, for example, so many people live past 100 that there’s an ongoing study of their healthy habits, which include a cultural tradition called “hara hachi bu” (only eating until they feel 80 percent full). 

3. Walk uphill. According to Greene, an exercise physiologist, fitness should literally be an uphill battle, since using a flat treadmill is similar to walking downhill. You don’t get enough of a workout to rev up your metabolism the rest of the day, a key goal of a healthy workout. (The book advises at least 200 minutes of cardio per week, plus weight lifting to strengthen the core.) My trainer also recommends walking sideways on a slanted treadmill—try it and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you start to feel the burn! 

4. Use sunscreen daily. Having lost my father to melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, I commend Greene for advocating the use of sunscreen for both prevention of skin cancer and premature wrinkles brought on by baking in the sun’s rays. The program includes a three-step facial rejuvenating plan: exfoliating with a dime-sized dab of skin polish, cleansing with an upward circular motion, and using an antioxidant-rich nourisher. Oprah claims that after following this routine for a few weeks, she noticed visible improvement.

5. Slim down by sleeping more. Up to 70 million Americans don’t get the seven to nine hours of sleep a night necessary for optimal health. Not only does that raise risk for heart attacks and diabetes, but it can also make us fat. Getting more rest is literally a dream diet, according to Dr. Kotler, because as we sleep, our bodies produce an appetite-suppressing chemical called leptin, making it easier to avoid overeating during the day.

6. Dim the lights at night. One bad habit that robs us of rest—and I admit that I’m a chronic offender—is using a computer (or watching TV) late a night, because the bright light from the screen tricks the brain into being wakeful instead of slowing down for shut-eye at bedtime. The sleep secret he advises may sound drastic: Get rid of all lights in the bedroom, except for a dim safety light. However, given the life-extending benefits of adequate sleep, it may be worth a try, much as my night owl nature resists this commonsense solution.