Three Babies Bad For Mum’s Career

Listen up, mums – a third baby might very well spell the end of your career, according to new research.

Fertility and Labour Market Participation, by University of NSW PhD candidates Anna Zhu and Catherine Brogan, found that women with three or more children are 10 percentage points less likely to be employed than those with two kids.

The study used ABS census data of 13, 000 Australian women and that by the time one child is ready for school, 62 per cent of mums with two kids are working in some way, while only 49 per cent of mums of three are back at work.

Study co-author Anna Zhu says, "You would probably expect a gap when the children are at younger ages because of the high costs of childcare and just trying to manage it all.

"But when the children get older you'd think those mothers with three children would be looking to get back into the workforce to be helping with things like school fees or university fees that might be coming up, yet it's still the case they are less likely to be in the workforce."

Ms Zhu suggests women who have been out of the workplace longer due to
more kids may feel less confident about their skills, or have not kept pace with technology changes.

"Longer term, this would involve better retraining of women with the skills they may have lost over the last decade to get them back into the workforce," she says.

What do you think? Could you manage three kids and a career or would time-management and the cost of childcare kill you?

Discuss this with our forum members here

Watch video: