Having children leads to a substantial and long-lasting reduction in women’s monthly earnings, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Data spanning 2014-2022 reveals that women lose an average of £66,000 in total earnings in the five years following the birth of their first child — according to the ONS.
After five years, the cumulative earnings loss averaged £65,618 following the birth of a first child, £26,317 following a second child and £32,456 following a third child.
This averages to a monthly earnings loss of 42% or £1,051 per month, five years after the first birth.
Rita Ochonogor, a 36-year-old part-time care co-ordinator for GP practices, has three children aged between one and nine. She spoke to The Londoners about the impact motherhood has had on her career.
Ochonogor said it was after her third child that she decided to work remotely and part-time.
Ochonogor said: “After one year [of maternity leave] a child is not going to look after themselves so I’ve had to reduce my hours. I’m thankful because, if I didn’t have a supportive husband, then I don’t know what it would have been like.
“I’m also thankful for having remote work where I don’t have to go in every day. However, even with remote work, my child is still at the stage where he is sensitive. He wants to be carried. He crawls around and I have to mind and watch him.
“I prefer days where I go to the office and know that my child is being taken care of because I’m more productive than I would be at home.”
The dataset, which is the first of its kind by the ONS, found that, in addition to lowered salaries, a woman’s likelihood of being in paid employment falls after the birth.
Compared with one year before birth, women were on average 15% less likely to be in paid work a year and a half after the birth of their first child.
Ochonogor said: “I think there’s a choice that has to be made. With my older children, I knew that they would go to school so I had six or seven hours of the day to do what I could do, but with [my youngest] there’s little to nothing I can do because it’s like 24 hour care.”
According to the ONS dataset, the south of England sees the biggest reduction in salaries a year after birth. Specifically, women in London lose an average of £1204.19 per month following their first child, £710.83 following their second and £705.18 following their third.
In the South East of England, women face an average monthly loss of £1,144.02 a year after the birth of their first child and £507.49 after their second and £497.99 after their third.
Ochonogor said: “Even if you have the option of flexible working hours, it affects your pay. So, it’s not really flexible then, is it? Regardless, my rent is going to come calling and I’m not going to change houses just because of that so I’m not really getting back those flexible hours.
Ochonogor explained that, though she had a year of maternity leave, the amount she received was ‘slashed’ after the first six weeks and, for the last three months, she did not receive any income.
Ochonogor said: “Bills are constant. Bills have to be paid.
”It looks like they give you support in terms of maternity leave but there’s the caveat of your income and bills that have to be paid. So, it looks like you’re given [support] but you’re not really given it.”
In the UK, Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid for up to nine months, or 39 weeks. For the first six weeks of this pay, women receive 90% of their average weekly earnings.
After six weeks, mothers receive either £187.18 or 90% of their average weekly earnings — depending on whichever amount is lower.
In April 2025, the National Living Wage for people aged 21 was set to £12.21 an hour meaning someone in this category working 35-hour weeks would earn £427.35.
After the first six weeks of maternity leave, women with maternity pay receive 44% of the National Living Wage.
Dr. Swinda Esprit, an anaesthetist who regularly works in obstetrics, told The Londoners: “The unpredictable nature of labour can result in unexpected high blood loss, the need for stitches or a caesarean section.
“All of which will result in women needing time to recuperate and time for the pain to subside before she feels normal.
“Changes in hormone levels mean that most women get ‘baby blues’ in the first few weeks after labour so they cannot be expected to immediately function as before.”
Another midwife, who did not want to be named, told The Londoners it takes at least six weeks for a woman with a normal pregnancy to return to her pre-pregnancy state physically.
“Post-partum can be stressful especially for first time mothers who have nothing to compare their experience to.
“Immediate physiological changes associated with pregnancy and child birth recovers in six to eight weeks but that’s with uncomplicated, normal child birth.
“It is entirely different in complex deliveries. In short, the current maternity leave period is absolutely essential in both the physical and physiological recovery of the mother.
“If a woman has a normal delivery with no complications and a healthy newborn with 100% support from her family and has a good socioeconomic background then she can expect to be back at work within nine to 12 months. Unfortunately, this is not normally the case for many women.”
According to the government’s September 2025 parental leave and pay review, 75% of mothers take at least the statutory 39 weeks, with the average mother taking nearly 44 weeks, or 10 months.
Maternity Action, a UK maternity rights charity, said this level of maternity pay is ‘pushing pregnant women and new mothers into poverty’.
Ali Fiddy, the director of Maternity Action, said: “Our system of maternity leave is vastly outdated, with an expectation that a mother will be supported by another higher breadwinner, and dangerously out of touch with today’s reality.
“Our critically low level of maternity pay is pushing pregnant women and new mothers into debt and poverty with implications for the Government’s pledges for closing the gender pay gap, making work pay for women, tackling child poverty and improving maternal and infant health.
The charity has found that women who use their charity say that the financial burden is not shared equally with their partners and that they are ‘unilaterally bearing the cost of borrowing and debt during maternity leave.’
Though the ONS cannot identify the exact reasons for the consistent loss in earnings, the data suggests employment status — whether it be through leaving the workforce or moving part-time — does impact total earnings.
Fiddy said: “Long-term, the Chancellor should implement a programme of phased investment that delivers parity between maternity payments and the standard weekly National Living Wage.
“In the shorter-term the Government should aim to at least restore payments to their 2012 pre-austerity level of around two-thirds of the National Living Wage, which financial modelling has shown is achievable.”
Ochonogor said: “Of course you want to look for big paying jobs but when you think of your child and the time you feel you can give, you stay where you can manage.”
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