Are You Prepared for the Cost of Parenthood?

Did you know that childcare is now more expensive than college in 33 states? While parenthood is beautiful, there's no need to go into it blind. If you're planning to start a family, now is the time to start planning for the financial costs of child-rearing, both from the perspective of short-term, monthly cash-flow and the long-term implications that parenthood-related career choices have on lifetime earnings and savings.

Here to talk on the podcast are experts in financial family planning: Siran Cao and Mel Faxon, founders of Mirza, a platform helping empower parents and future parents to take control of their finances and plan for a family. 

We discuss the "motherhood penalty," created by lack of access to paid leave, cultural roles that make mothers the default parent, and workplace cultures that penalize mothers - and the impact that this penalty has on long-term earnings and financial health. Siran and Mel also advise future parents on when they should start family financial planning, how to do so, and what to consider (hint: we discuss at length the shockingly high cost of childcare in the United States, which often catches parents off guard). 

Lastly, Mel and Siran discuss public policy and workplace solutions to the lack of support for parents: what changes are needed for paid parental leave and affordable childcare, and how we must create a culture that promotes gender equity in parenting at all levels, including in the design of our workplace cultures and policies. 

 

LINKS:

- Care.com: This is How Much Child Care Costs in 2021

- CNBC: New Census data reveals no progress has been made on closing the overall gender pay gap (2018-2019 data)

- INC: Every Child a Woman Has Cuts Her Salary by 4%. But Fathers Get a 6% Increase

- Newsweek: Pandemic Could Cost Typical American Woman Nearly $600,000 in Lifetime Income

 

- Financial Post: Women are 30% less wealthy in retirement than men

- Mirza: The Business Case For Paid Leave; how a paid family & medical leave plan would help employers

- Join the movement to gain paid family and medical leave for everyone in the United States: https://paidleave.us/

 

- Project Matriarchs: College students launch virtual tutoring to help working moms with home schooling

 

- The Institute for Women's Policy Research Report: Still A Man's Labor Market
"Women today earn just 49 cents to the typical men's dollar, much less than the 80 cents usually reported....The penalties of taking time out of the labor force are high—and increasing. For those who took just one year off from work, women's annual earnings were 39 percent lower...a much higher cost than women faced in the time period beginning in 1968, when one year out of work resulted in a 12 percent cut in earnings."

- Study on the motherhood penalty: 
"Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark"
"Using Danish administrative data from 1980-2