There is, of course, no crime more dreadful in modern society than discrimination. And how dreadful that new forms of it are being uncovered every day. The latest foul piece of bigotry, it turns out, is employers favouring male employees with kids. According to the study by the IPPR, and commissioned by the TUC, today, fathers in full-time employment earn a ’21 per cent wage bonus’ compared with male employees who don’t have children. With women, apparently, it is the other way round, with mothers earning 11 per cent less than female employees without children. The research is based on a sample of 17,000 people born in a single week in 1970.
There is a pretty obvious reason behind these findings: fathers work harder than non-fathers because they have to. They need to buy bigger houses with bigger mortgages, they have the cost of feeding, clothing and educating their children, and therefore they work more hours and seek better-paid jobs than childless men who are supporting only themselves.
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