By Dr Linzi Ladlow, Research Fellow in Family Research at the University of Lincoln and co-lead of the Family Policy Group.
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On 19th May 2025, the Family Policy Group of the Social Policy Association hosted a timely and thought-provoking webinar with Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed. Chaired by Professor Anna Tarrant, the session explored the ongoing realities of pregnancy and maternity discrimination, the motherhood penalty, and what needs to change in policy and culture to support gender equality in work and care.
Joeli opened the session by recounting her own experience of pregnancy discrimination, which led to her dismissal while four months pregnant. This personal injustice, coupled with a lack of affordable legal recourse, became the catalyst for the creation of Pregnant Then Screwed in 2015. What began as a website to document the experiences of other women has since evolved into a national movement that campaigns for structural change and provides vital support to mothers facing discrimination and inequality at work.
Joeli highlighted findings from the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s 2015 research, which estimated that around 54,000 women per year, approximately one in nine mothers, are pushed out of their jobs due to pregnancy (EHRC, 2015). Follow-up research by Pregnant Then Screwed in 2022 indicates that this figure has worsened, with 74,000 mothers reporting similar discrimination (Pregnant Then Screwed, 2022). These statistics demonstrate a persistent and deepening problem, reflecting systemic inequality that continues despite more than a decade of public debate and legal protections aimed at preventing such discrimination.
At the heart of Joeli’s talk was the ‘motherhood penalty’, the term used to describe the systematic disadvantage mothers experience in the labour market, including lower earnings, limited career progression, and reduced job security. The motherhood penalty is well documented in UK social policy research and remains a significant challenge (Budig et al., 2012). Evidence shows that the motherhood penalty is both persistent and widening, with analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirming that women’s earnings diverge sharply after having children, with long-term consequences for financial security and gender equality(Costa Dias et al., 2018).
In her presentation, Joeli highlighted four interlocking areas of policy and practice that sustain this inequality:
- Childcare affordability: UK childcare costs are among the highest in the OECD, often outstripping wages and creating major barriers to employment for mothers (OECD, 2022).
- Parental leave policy: Statutory maternity and paternity leave pay is low by international standards (et al., 2022), and class inequalities are embedded in the system. Self-employed and precariously employed parents face significant barriers to accessing paid leave (Tarrant et al., 2025). Koslowski et al. (2022) show that while some UK employers offer more gender-neutral parental leave policies, these remain the exception rather than the norm, constraining progress toward workplace gender equality.
- Part-time and precarious work: Mothers disproportionately occupy part-time and insecure employment, which typically offers lower wages and fewer career advancement opportunities (Connolly & Gregory, 2008). Joeli highlighted the particular difficulties faced by women on zero-hours and other precarious contracts in accessing rights and planning childcare.
- Cultural and structural bias: Mothers frequently face negative workplace stereotypes, and are often perceived as less committed or competent, reducing promotion prospects and pay (Correll et al., 2007). Government Equalities Office (2019) data shows that working mothers are half as likely to be promoted as working fathers, while men face social and workplace barriers to taking parental leave, which sustains traditional gender divisions of labour and care (Tarrant et al., 2025).
Joeli emphasised that the disadvantages faced by mothers in the workplace are not inevitable. Rather, they stem from the absence of robust policy support for working families and the persistence of gendered assumptions about care. Addressing the motherhood penalty requires a dual approach: structural reform, including affordable childcare and inclusive, well-paid parental leave, and cultural change that normalises shared caregiving. Central to this is tackling the barriers that limit fathers’ participation in care (Tarrant et al., 2025). Joeli highlighted the need for leave policies that are accessible and financially viable for all parents, regardless of gender, and for workplace cultures that recognise and value caregiving. Without these shifts, both in policy and in workplace norms, gender inequalities will continue to be reproduced in both the home and the labour market.
Since stepping down from her role at Pregnant Then Screwed, Joeli has continued to explore these themes through a new podcast, To Be a Boy, co-hosted with Elliot Rae of Music, Football, Fatherhood. The series aims to challenge narrow ideas of masculinity and support more open conversations about fatherhood, care, and emotion, themes that are essential to building more equal systems of work and family life. As Joeli stressed throughout the webinar, tackling the motherhood penalty is not just about fairness for women. It has wider consequences for children’s wellbeing, economic productivity, and the reproduction of inequality. Maternal income and job security shape child health outcomes, while rigid gender roles limit all families, regardless of their configuration.
For social policy scholars and practitioners, the motherhood penalty cuts across long-standing concerns: the undervaluation of care, the gendered patterning of poverty, and labour market systems that too often ignore the realities of parenting. Responding to these challenges means combining structural reforms, better childcare, fairer leave policies, and stronger legal protections, with cultural change that normalises caregiving as a shared social responsibility.
References
Budig, M.J., Misra, J. and Boeckmann, I., 2012. The motherhood penalty in cross-national perspective: The importance of work–family policies and cultural attitudes. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 19(2), pp.163–193.
Connolly, S. and Gregory, M., 2008. Moving down: Women’s part‐time work and occupational change in Britain 1991–2001. The Economic Journal, 118(526), pp.F52–F76.
Correll, S.J., Benard, S. and Paik, I., 2007. Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? American Journal of Sociology, 112(5), pp.1297–1338.
Costa Dias, M., Joyce, R. and Parodi, F., 2018. The gender pay gap in the UK: Children and experience in work. London: Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2015. Pregnancy and maternity-related discrimination and disadvantage: Experiences of mothers. [pdf] Available at: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/mothers_report_-_bis-16-146-pregnancy-and-maternity-related-discrimination-and-disadvantage-experiences-of-mothers_1.pdf [Accessed 20 May 2025].
Government Equalities Office, 2019. Gender equality at every stage: A roadmap for change. [pdf] London: GEO. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gender-equality-at-every-stage-a-roadmap-for-change [Accessed 20 May 2025].
Koslowski, A., Blum, S., Dobrotić, I., Kaufman, G. and Moss, P., 2022. International review of leave policies and research 2022. [pdf] International Network on Leave Policies and Research. Available at: https://www.leavenetwork.org/fileadmin/user_upload/k_leavenetwork/annual_reviews/2022/Koslowski_et_al_Leave_Policies_2022.pdf [Accessed 20 May 2025].
OECD, 2022. Net childcare costs. [online] Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/net-childcare-costs.html [Accessed 20 May 2025]
Pregnant Then Screwed, 2022. Employment discrimination survey results. [online] Available at: https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/74000-women-a-year-lose-their-jobs-for-getting-pregnant-or-for-taking-maternity-leave/ [Accessed 20 May 2025].
Tarrant, A., Gaunt, R., Jordan, A., Harle, E. and Ladlow, L., 2025. Written evidence submitted to the Shared Parental Leave Inquiry (SPL0044). [pdf] House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee. Available at: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/137270/pdf/ [Accessed 20 May 2025].