On Penalties and Premiums: The Impact of Childbirth on the Well-Being and Work of Parents | WIP Seminar with Daisy Pollenne

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The impact of childbirth on men and women’s careers is well documented: while fathers often experience wage premiums, mothers face persistent employment penalties. Less is known, however, about how becoming a parent impacts well-being. Do mothers face a double penalty, experiencing both career set-backs and reduced well-being? Is the well-being of fathers, who tend to maintain or improve their career trajectories, largely unaffected? We examine how parenthood affects mothers’ and fathers’ well-being using Understanding Society, a nationally representative longitudinal survey in the UK. Following 35,000 parents from four years before to six years after first childbirth, we track daily emotions and life satisfaction and reveal striking gender differences in how well-being evolves after childbirth. While fathers report persistently higher unhappiness, for mothers, well-being depends on post-birth career trajectories: those who return to work full-time experience increased unhappiness, whereas those who reduce their hours do not. These results challenge the assumption that men benefit unambiguously from parenthood and underscore a trade-off for mothers between career progression and well-being. Our findings also suggest that addressing gender inequality requires a broader perspective than the conventional focus on objective employment measures and equal opportunities for career advancement. Organizations must consider how the structure of work affects parents’ well-being, as the inflexible nature of many workplaces likely contributes to fathers’ difficulty balancing family responsibilities with organizational demands and mothers’ need to choose between professional success and personal well-being.

Daisy Pollenne joined INSEAD in September 2024 as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Stone Centre for the Study of Wealth Inequality. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford and a Master's degree in Social and Political Sciences from Sciences Po, Paris. Prior to joining INSEAD, Daisy served as a researcher at DARES, the evaluation department of the French Ministry of Labour. She also collaborated with various non-governmental organisations, focusing on refugees' social and workplace integration. At INSEAD, Daisy is working with Professors Maria Guadalupe, Kaisa Snellman and Mark Stabile on research related to work and well-being. Her broader research interests encompass workplace norms, such as those that promote gender equality or the inclusion of marginalised groups, and the relation between workplace well-being, productivity and performance.

Our CIRHR Work-In-Progress Seminar series allows members of our community to discuss early-stage research. Future guest speakers include:

• October 22, Sajdeep Soomal, PhD student, Department of History
• November 12, Jason Sockin, Assistant Professor, Cornell University