Women can only earn about half as much gross income as men over the course of their working lives. Children play a role in this, but women without children also earn significantly less.
According to a study, there is a large gap between the lifetime income of women and men. Calculated over the entire working life, women could only earn a little more than half as much gross income as men, reports the Bertelsmann Foundation.
This calculation refers to a life span between 20 and 60 years, explained a labor market expert from the foundation in Gütersloh.
Children play a role
The discrepancy tends to be smaller for childless women. According to a study funded by the foundation, mothers are left behind. “For them, the gap is even larger and increases with the number of children,” analyzed researchers at the Free University of Berlin.
However, the gap in disposable income can be closed, especially when women move within the traditional family picture. If both incomes in the household were divided equally between the spouses, the partner’s income would absorb the loss of income from mothers as a result of career breaks, for example to raise children.
Amount of around 700,000 euros net
According to the study, married mothers and fathers who were born in 1985 – who are now in their mid-30s – each have a net total of just under 700,000 euros at their prime working age. This calculation after taxes and levies and plus transfers and family benefits refers to the life span between 20 and 55 years.
Single mothers have a much smaller sum: Mothers who are mostly single parents – i.e. more than half of the parenting time – between the ages of 20 and 55 only have a net total of around 520,000 euros at their disposal. That’s an average of 25 percent less than married mothers.
Family-specific transfer payments that are not linked to marriage and partnership could, to a certain extent, compensate for the loss of earned income for the duration of the payment. However, these transfers – such as parental allowance – are not sufficient to compensate for disadvantages over the entire working life that arise from breaks in work and reduced working hours.
Source: Stern
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