Mommy track

A mommy track is a path in a woman's life that puts priority to being a mother. It can also specifically refer to work arrangements for women in the workforce that facilitate motherhood, such as flexible hours, but at the same time usually provides fewer opportunities for career advancement. References to the mommy track often go along with being a housewife, "opting out" of the workforce, temporarily or even permanently. Women following the mommy track may be contrasted to career women who prioritize their careers more than having children.

Felice Schwartz’s 1989 article in the Harvard Business Journal is called the first discussion of the mommy track phenomenon. Schwartz claims in the article that while “the cost of employing women in management is greater than the cost of employing men,” this greater cost is due primarily to gendered expectations of the workplace and women’s duties in raising children. Schwartz wrote:

The misleading metaphor of the glass ceiling suggests an invisible barrier constructed by corporate leaders to impede the upward mobility of women beyond the middle levels. A more appropriate metaphor, I believe, is the kind of cross-sectional diagram used in geology. The barriers to women’s leadership occur when potentially counterproductive layers of influence on women—maternity, tradition, socialization—meet management strata pervaded by the largely unconscious preconceptions, stereotypes, and expectations of men. Such interfaces do not exist for men and tend to be impermeable for women.

Schwartz's assertions generated widespread publicity and a new conversation about women in the workplace. The New York Times was the publication to actually coin the term Mommy track in a March 8, 1989 article, "Mommy Career Track Sets Off Furor" which discussed Schwartz's article and the response to it in the public sphere. The article described the mommy track as a phenomenon "in which women with family responsibilities are shunted into dead-end, lower-paying jobs."

Across different pay levels and socioeconomic groups, women’s earnings tend to plateau after giving birth. Even when controlling for variables, on average mothers in all groups earn lower wages than non-mothers. Beyond this general drop in earnings, though, there are significant differences in mothers’ wage gaps between high-earning women and low-earning women.

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