Originally Posted by
Seamus Fermanagh
The accepted adjustments are for education and relevant experience. When working with "lifetime" earnings rather than annual salary, unpaid maternity leave is factored out.
The answer is culture centric and truly relevant only in Western or near-Western cultures/economies. In most of the developing world, women as professionals are still too much of a novelty. In Western culture, it varies from state to state depending on laws regarding parental leave etc. What cannot currently be accounted for is that a woman on maternity leave is not part of/experienced with whatever content is being dealt with by her organization for the duration of her leave. Return her to her job with no loss of pay etc. and you still have that experience gap which may end up contributing to her getting edged out in the next performance review because she is behind on being "in the know" for that organization (and I do not mean this to be snippy, the women's reviewer probably assesses this unconsciously). In addition, Western cultures have not traditionally taught women to bargain as they have men, creating some disadvantage in negotiation for one's own compensation.
Of COURSE this contributes to a lowered birth rate. Any woman serious about her career, unless her husband stays home with the kids, inevitably faces some measure, however small, of career disadvantage by having a child. Add to that the waning of religion in the West (most of which advocate/countenance more births per woman), and the effect of industrialization and technology (farmers no longer need 8 kids to help get the harvest in before it rots, etc.) and there are clear pressures to reduce the number of births per woman.
Until technology obviates the need for a woman to carry a child to term in her body, this problem will continue.