Work-Related Impression Formation: Reviewing Parenthood Penalties and Investigating a “Fatherhood Penalty” for Single Fathers

Abstract

We review the evidence that mothers, compared to childless women or fathers, are discriminated at work (“motherhood penalty”) and that fathers may receive “caregiver penalties.” We conclude that (implicitly or explicitly) expected family roles appear to determine parenthood penalties. On this basis, we examined penalties for fathers who are only assumed to be primary caregivers. We found “fatherhood penalties” for single fathers compared to married fathers (Experiment 1, N = 343) and compared to singles and single mothers (Experiment 2, N = 142 professionals). We discuss the mixed evidence on work-related perceptions of parents.

Acknowledgments

We thank Sarah Linder, Julia Lischitzki, Helena Pauen, and Nils Schönfeld for valuable help, and Savannah Loker for language editing and valuable comments on a previous version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability

Data are available on the Open Science Framework, omitting sample demographics (https://osf.io/aegn6/).

Additional information

Funding

The current research was supported by a grant by the German Research Foundation to the first author [DFG STE 938/11-1].