Dr Xijia You
Department of Sociology, University of Oxford
Workplace discrimination against mothers is well documented in sociology. The “motherhood penalty” literature demonstrates that mothers incur wage penalties and diminished career prospects compared to childless women and men, as employers perceive motherhood as incompatible with ideal worker norms (Budig & England, 2001; Correll et al., 2007; Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). More recently, Hutt Cabello (2023) has made a crucial theoretical extension: the penalty extends beyond current mothers to potential mothers. Women deemed “at risk” of future childbearing are treated as uncertain and costly, as employers anticipate disruptions from maternity leave and perceived declines in commitment (Appelbaum & Milkman, 2011). This expansion opens an important line of inquiry: how is women’s childbearing “risk” assessed, and how does the mechanism vary across institutional contexts?
In my research on childbearing postponement among young adults in Shenzhen, China, I developed a temporal framework mapping normative life course transitions onto two interconnected lines: a productive line (education, career establishment, property acquisition) and a reproductive line (dating, marriage, childbearing), as illustrated in Figure 1. A key finding is that the reproductive line operates as what I term a terminal continuum – once entered, childbearing is not one option among many but the presumed and socially enforced endpoint. In a society where non-marital childbearing remains exceptionally rare and voluntary childlessness is widely regarded as normatively unacceptable (Cai & Feng, 2021; Fong, 2002), decades of the one-child policy have consolidated a powerful norm: every married couple is expected to have at least one child (Chen & Gietel-Basten, 2026).
Figure 1. Normative Life Course Transitions in Contemporary China
This framework enriches and contextualises Hutt Cabello’s (2023) concept of “future childbearing risk” by providing a new institutional setting. In their US-based research, Hutt Cabello (2023) demonstrates that employers use multiple sociodemographic characteristics – age, marital status, race/ethnicity, and social class – to assess whether a woman is likely to have a child soon. The Chinese case presents a strikingly different logic. Because the reproductive line functions as a terminal continuum, marital status alone becomes a sufficient predictor. The employer’s calculus is starkly simple: married and childless means childbearing is imminent. A married woman without children is not someone who might reproduce – she is someone who almost certainly will. She is, in effect, a “ticking time bomb” that has already been activated.
Workplace discrimination against childless women was a recurring theme across my interviews. Four women provided particularly detailed narratives, analysed here as selected case studies across three career stages: first-job seeking, job changing, and promotion. Recalling her experience at age 23, Jennie described being asked during first-job interviews: “Do you have a boyfriend? Do you have any plans for marriage and childbearing?” Recognising the implied risk assessment, she concealed her relationship, reasoning that “it will take quite a long time from being single to bearing children.” Within the framework (see Figure 1), being single signals that a woman has not yet entered the reproductive line – and therefore poses no immediate risk.
The penalty intensifies at later career stages. When Mak, married and changing jobs around 30, attended interviews, recruiters asked how long she had been married and when she planned to have children, subtly warning against having children shortly after she joined. Rabb, 31 and married for one year, was denied a promotion because her manager judged she “had just gotten married and might soon have children” – while a female colleague who had returned from maternity leave was promoted because, as Rabb explained, “She’s done!”
Yet even “being done” proves elusive. Rain, aged 31 and childless for two years after marriage and was personally committed to remaining childfree, was advised by her HR friend to have a child first and then switch jobs. She articulated a sharp insight that resonates with Hutt Cabello’s (2023) argument that current mothers may carry even stronger future childbearing risk: “After having one child, won’t they think I won’t have a second? I think people who have had one child are more likely to have a second!” In the US context, this logic might hold. In China, however, the legacy of the one-child policy has consolidated a norm where first childbearing is broadly treated as “completion” of reproductive duty (Cai & Feng, 2021; Xie, 2021). Discrimination therefore targets married childless women with particular intensity: they occupy the point of maximum perceived risk on the terminal continuum – the moment just before the “bomb” detonates.
These findings carry implications for current policy debates. Since 2021, China has actively introduced pro-natalist measures – implementing a three-child policy, extending maternity leave, and expanding childcare subsidies (Yang et al., 2024) – to reverse the decline in fertility. Yet my research suggests these policies may inadvertently intensify workplace discrimination against married childless women. By reinforcing the expectation that married women should bear children, pro-natalist messaging strengthens the very assumption employers use to penalise women’s reproductive potential. Rain – despite being firmly committed to not having children – declared: “Nobody would believe it!” The more the policy promotes childbearing, the more employers treat married childless women as liabilities, regardless of their actual intentions.
Addressing China’s fertility challenges requires looking beyond reproductive incentives to confront the structural penalties women face for their presumed reproductive futures. As pro-natalist policies continue to encourage larger families, emerging research suggests that two children may be replacing one as the dominant fertility preference (Nie et al., 2025). How evolving childbearing norms continue to reshape married women’s position in the labour market warrants sustained scholarly attention.
References
Appelbaum, E., & Milkman, R. (2011). Leaves that pay. Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Budig, M. J., & England, P. (2001). The wage penalty for motherhood. American Sociological Review, 66(2), 204–225.
Cai, Y., & Feng, W. (2021). The social and sociological consequences of China's one-child policy. Annual Review of Sociology, 47, 587–606.
Chen, S., & Gietel-Basten, S. (2026). Only children and low family size ideals: Did the one-child policy create a “low-fertility trap” in China? European Journal of Population, 42, 7.
Correll, S. J., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? American Journal of Sociology, 112(5), 1297–1338.
Fong, V. L. (2002). China’s one-child policy and the empowerment of urban daughters. American Anthropologist, 104(4), 1098–1109.
Hutt Cabello, T. (2023). A new dimension of the motherhood penalty: Perceptions of future childbearing risk [Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill].
Nie, P., Wang, L., & Sousa-Poza, A. (2025). Peer effects and fertility preferences in China: Evidence from the China Labor-Force Dynamics Survey. The Singapore Economic Review, 70(03), 695–723.
Ridgeway, C. L., & Correll, S. J. (2004). Unpacking the gender system. Gender & Society, 18(4), 510–531.
Xie, K. (2021). The Right Time for Childbirth: The Naturalisation of Motherhood Within Marriage. In K. Xie, Embodying Middle Class Gender Aspirations (pp. 109–154). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1139-1_4
Yang, Y., Guo, Z., & Cao, Y. (2024). National will in the context of low fertility. Policy Studies, 45(4), 582–602.