New study revisits the ‘motherhood penalty’ at work: Fatherhood may improve professional perceptions
A new study from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business has reopened the debate over the professional image of mothers and fathers in the workplace, after its experiments showed that the traditional assumption of a “motherhood penalty” did not appear in the expected way in participants’ evaluations. Rather than viewing parents as less competent, participants in several experiments gave mothers and fathers more positive ratings than nonparents for warmth, competence and promotability.
The findings do not mean that the challenges facing working mothers have disappeared, nor that disclosing family status guarantees a workplace advantage. The researchers themselves stressed that the experiments measured limited impressions under research-designed conditions, and that bias may appear differently in real workplace settings and in more complex decisions.
What did the study find?
The research was led by Duke University Professor Ashley Shelby Rosette, along with collaborating researchers. The team examined whether the longstanding stereotype that mothers are less professionally competent than women without children still influences evaluations. In the initial experiments, participants assessed fictional employee profiles, and the results ran counter to the traditional expectation: no penalty specific to women appeared; instead, the researchers observed what they described as a “parenthood boost” for both men and women.
According to Duke University, parents in these experiments were rated as warmer and, in many cases, as more competent and more deserving of promotion than nonparents. However, the study does not offer an absolute judgment on the labor market; rather, it suggests that some social perceptions associated with motherhood and fatherhood may have changed compared with what they were two decades ago.
The results were not equal among all participants
When the researchers expanded the tests to include race, important differences emerged. In an experiment involving 1,604 adults in the United States, the “fatherhood boost” remained more pronounced among white parents, while Black fathers did not receive the same increase in ratings of warmth and competence or in promotion recommendations. In another experiment involving nearly 1,200 participants evaluating a fictional candidate for the position of deputy assistant for finance, the same pattern recurred.
This finding led the researchers to warn against viewing bias as operating in only one direction; the question may not be limited to who faces a penalty, but also include who receives an advantage resulting from a positive stereotype.
Should you write “mother” or “father” on your résumé?
The study does not recommend doing so. Rosette explained that the findings are experimental and insufficient to advise job applicants to add their family status to their résumés. At the same time, she said the findings do not support the assumption that concealing parenthood is always necessary to avoid a negative perception.
The researchers also stressed that the “motherhood penalty” may still exist in other contexts; a first impression formed from a fictional profile differs from decisions on pay, promotion and hiring, which are influenced by multiple institutional and social factors.
Why do the findings matter to working families?
For mothers and fathers balancing family and work, the study offers an important indication that some perceptions are changing, but it does not eliminate the challenges of caregiving, time, child-care costs or actual gaps in employment opportunities. The research’s most important contribution is its call for institutions to measure bias using newer tools and not assume that old stereotypes operate in the same way in every environment.
Sources: Duke Today and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, October 5 and August 26, 2026.
