Creating Mumentum: Tackling the Motherhood Penalty

The disadvantages women often face at work after childbirth are often overshadowed by other workplace challenges. However, research from The Open University clearly shows that motherhood can have a significant impact on a woman’s career and is an ingrained societal problem that needs urgently addressing.

The Open University’s Dr Wenjin Dai and Kendal Wright delivered an impactful keynote session at our Race at Work Conference on “Tackling the Motherhood Penalty For Diverse Mothers”. Through our events we continue to inspire employers to take action to further equality at work. This session reinforced the need for an intersectional approach for progress, examining gender, parenthood and race together.  

The Motherhood Penalty

The motherhood penalty is the disadvantages women experience at work after having a child, for example in terms of pay, development opportunities and progression into leadership. Having a child shouldn’t mean you have to sacrifice your career. It highlights how important it is that we create systems that support women to get back to work in a way that feels comfortable, supportive and accessible for women of all backgrounds.

The research team from The Open University focuses on two employee groups that have largely been ignored in research on tackling the motherhood penalty.

• Parents working in front-line roles
• Mothers from racially diverse backgrounds

The motherhood penalty impacts all women differently and all women have their own preferences and needs. The barriers each will face in returning to work will be different, and it is important that we recognise that this issue isn’t a one-size fits all fix – a waitress and a director will have different requirements when coming back to work, and more importantly, different women will have individual obstacles that need to be addressed.

Open University Research on the Motherhood Penalty at Work

Kendal Wright is a Lecturer in Policing at the School of Law at The Open University. She is one of the academics behind the Mumentum campaign that has helped to highlight the issues faced by mothers in making a sustainable return to work. This insight informed resources shared to help both mothers and employers in understanding and supporting an effective return to the workforce.

Her colleague, Dr Wenjin Dai, co-hosted the keynote session and was also part of the academic team behind the Mumentum research, alongside Kendal Wright, Dr Keely Duddin and Francesca Calò .

Dr Wenjin is a Senior lecturer in Leadership and Diversity at The Open University. Wenjin has conducted extensive qualitative research on the intersection of motherhood, race, and gender.

“Only one in three mothers come back to full-time jobs currently in the UK. Many working mothers had no choice but to quite their job or work part-time to look after children. We’ve got to look into this to let more people know what’s happening and how women from diverse backgrounds can experience motherhood at work differently” – Dr Wenjin Dai

In society, it is often assumed to be a simple process whereby you would start your maternity leave, then simply jump straight back into work afterwards. This is clearly not the case and working to ensure more employers understand and respect this, with more consistent and structured organisation practices, will allow mothers to have more successful transitions back into work. The research shows that even small changes can make a world of difference to a working mother.

The Intersection of Race and Motherhood

In the first section of their keynote, Dr Wenjin shared valuable insight from her Diverse Motherhoods research project which explored motherhood and race. Understanding the needs and preferences of ethnic minority mothers in the UK is essential if true progress is to be made on tackling the motherhood penalty at work.

“Our research examines how the government, employers, and communities can better support ethnic minority mothers for work inclusion. It clearly shows that ethnic minority and precariously employed mothers face compounded barriers that require supportive and inclusive responses.” – Dr Wenjin Dai

Here is an example of the kinds of challenges face by mothers, taken from Dr Wenjin’s research:

• Unaffordable, inaccessible, and inflexible early years childcare: Difficult to access due to lack of knowledge of the system, inflexible schedules that cater to 9-5 working hours and visa restrictions impacting access to financial support.
• Lack of culturally attentive childcare: Poor representation of ethnic minority staff in childcare settings and lack of familiarity with differing cultural needs and practices. 
• Insufficient paternity leave and lack of understanding of shared parental leave: Paternity leave is too short, and the complexity of shared parental leave is a significant deterrent.
• Lack of awareness and systematic support for diverse mothers returning to work: Limited employer awareness about how to best support the needs of diverse mothers, with gendered, cultural, and ethnic assumptions impacting upon employers practices.
• Limited investment in community-based support: A strong desire amongst mothers for local support that reflects their needs practically and socially, yet faced by increasingly limited funding and services.

Find out more about the practical implications of Dr Wenjin’s research for employers here: Policy Brief (Dai et al., 2025).

Now is the time to move from non-inclusive practices to policies that address structural, cultural and institutional barriers to women’s leadership in the public sector. One of these barriers is the motherhood penalty, and Women in Public Sector Leadership Conference 2026 will explore other barriers, bringing industry leaders, inspiring advocates and professionals together to create routes into leadership positions in the public sector. Find out more here.

Tackling the motherhood penalty in front-line roles

The Open University research also examined the experiences of women working in front-line policing roles. Front-line policing is a highly gendered, public-facing profession with shift work, operational demands and limited flexibility, where poor maternity-return experiences could have wider implications for workforce capability and service delivery. 

The research provides practical recommendations that challenge assumptions about what is possible in non-standard roles (for example, non-desk based, public facing or shift work) and show how employer practices can be adapted without compromising operational requirements. 

“Our research captured responses from 4,752 women across every UK Home Office and specialist force, alongside more than 9,000 qualitative comments. It provides robust evidence on how pregnancy, maternity leave and return-to-work practices shape retention, progression and inclusion in a highly stressful and historically male dominated industry.” – Kendal Wright

Two practical toolkits, built on the research evidence

Kendal, Wenjin and colleagues’ aim is for ALL mothers (who want to work) to be able to make an effective transition back into work; one that enables them to use their talents, pursue their ambition and is ultimately sustainable.

Dr Wenjin Dai, Kendal Wright, Dr Keely Duddin and Dr Francesca Calo from the Open University have developed two practical toolkits, one for employers and one for parents. They are informed by research evidence and published in collaboration with the Department for Work and Pensions. They provide practical guidance for employers on how to better support mothers and offer a blueprint for businesses to help mums in their transition back into the workplace.

“The parents’ toolkit has been introduced to over 650 Job Centre Plus’s across the UK. We’ve trained over 300 work coaches as part of that partnership as well, and we are looking to do further training this spring. We’ve also had over 5,000 views and have big plans for our toolkits to make a positive difference to helping parents back into the workplace after any kind of parental leave.” – Kendal Wright

Employer Toolkit

The employer toolkit contains advice and practical tools for employers and managers around:

• Why pre-return planning is critical for mothers to feel prepared
• How to ensure a smooth and supportive transition
• How to support parents whilst they’re adapting to balancing parenthood and working
• Mental health support
• Why flexibility matters and how employers can introduce it into their workplace.

Parents’ Toolkit

The toolkit for parents and primary caregivers covers:

• Important policies (including maternal and parental rights, funded childcare support, flexible working and return-to-work rights etc.)
• Practical tips for confidence building, job searching, building a support network and more. 

The work done by the OU team is truly inspiring. The passion both Dr Wenjin Dai and Kendal Wright felt for the topic was apparent on the day, and it was one of the most popular sessions at the Race at Work Conference this year. We’d like to thank both of them for their insightful session and the powerful impact their Mumentum campaign is having. You can find out more about our upcoming Women in Public Sector Leadership Conference 2026 here.