APR 11 2016, 3:05 PM ET 'Motherhood Penalty' Can Affect Women Who Never Even Have a Child

[WhiteTara]

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/motherhood-penalty-can-affect-women-who-never-even-have-child-n548511

As women fight what has been an uphill battle for equal pay, they continue to face another exacerbating factor: being penalized for the fact that they could — regardless of whether they will — have children.

While much of the public discussion of the "wage gap" has focused around women getting equal pay for the same work as their male peers, this quiet "pregnancy penalty" has gotten less attention, in part because it's so much more difficult to measure. But some experts argue that even the mere possibility that a woman can have a baby can be enough for employers to push her to the back of the line.

Women already know that announcing their pregnancy in the workplace will likely mean changes, said Katharine Zaleski, cofounder and president of PowertoFly, which connects women to positions that allow them to work remotely.

"A lot of women feel like, if they don't keep it under wraps, they're going to get taken off projects that they'd been spending months, if not years working towards," said Zaleski, who co-founded her company after becoming a mother. Expectant women are simply "cut out of the conversation," she said.