Womenomics

Daughters of Working Mothers Earn 23 Percent More

When a woman works outside of the home before her children are 14 years old, she improves her daughter’s career prospects, a new report found. Harvard Business School’s recently launched “Gender Initiative” analyzed data of nearly 50,000 adults aged 18 to 60 in 24 nations from 2002 to 2012. The data was from the International Social Survey Program, a multi-country program that looks at social trends across developed nations. The same did not hold true for sons of working mothers, however; they are as likely as sons with stay-at-home mothers to hold supervisory positions and earn comparable salaries.

In the U.S., adult daughters of working mothers earned 23 percent more than those whose mothers had not worked during their childhoods, earning an annual average income of $35,474 versus $28,894, the study found. More than one-third held supervisory positions, compared with just one-quarter of their counterparts from more traditional households. The study was written by Harvard Business School professor Kathleen McGinn; Harvard Business School researcher Mayra Ruiz Castro; and Elizabeth Long Lingo, a researcher at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

The pattern of results strongly suggests a “role modeling effect,” McGinn says. Daughters look around them to look at what’s appropriate behavior. They see that it’s appropriate and reasonable for women to go to work, and for women to be powerful, to hold supervisory responsibility and to make money.”