When motherhood and ambition come at a cost

In Part 1 of this article, we explored how capitalism charges women more for existing, through the pink tax and wage gaps. In Part 2, we look at how motherhood, entrepreneurship, and funding disparities deepen these economic injustices.

The motherhood penalty: The financial cost of having children

Becoming a mother should be a personal decision, not a financial risk. But in today’s economy, women are penalized for having children—both at work and at home.

Mothers are 39% less likely to be hired than women without children, even when they have the same qualifications. Once they are employed, mothers earn 10-20% less per child than women without children. Meanwhile, fathers actually see a “fatherhood bonus� they are more likely to be promoted and given raises.

Why does this happen?

Employers assume mothers are “less committed�/b> and penalize them for taking maternity leave.

Rigid work structures don’t accommodate caregiving responsibilities.

Societal expectations place the bulk of childcare responsibilities on mothers, forcing many women to reduce hours or leave the workforce entirely.

This isn’t just about fairness; it’s about economic loss. If women had the same employment opportunities as men, global GDP could increase by $28 trillion by 2025.

The investment gap: Why women struggle for funding

Funding shapes who gets to innovate, lead, and thrive—and for women, access to capital remains a systemic barrier. Whether in entrepreneurship or medical research, the numbers reveal a stark reality: women are drastically underfunded.

Venture capitalists claim to back high-growth, disruptive startups, yet only 2% of global VC funding goes to female founders. Even in top economies like the U.S. and U.K., women-led businesses receive less than 5% of all investment. In India, the numbers are even worse.

This isn’t due to lack of capability, ambition, or market potential, it’s structural.

Unconscious bias �Investors perceive men as better risk-takers and expect women to prove profitability earlier.

Network exclusion �The investment world is overwhelmingly male, and funding flows through existing male-dominated relationships.

Few women in VC leadership �Less than 5% of decision-makers in Indian venture capital are women, meaning the people controlling the money rarely see female founders as their peers.

This cycle starves women-led businesses of the capital needed to grow, hire, and scale, keeping them underrepresented in the startup ecosystem.

Yet, the financial system continues to undervalue, underfund, and overlook half the population. The solution isn’t just more funding, but more women in leadership—at VC firms, and in investment boards.

Because when women don’t get funded, society loses.

The cost of being a woman shouldn’t exist

Capitalism has found endless ways to extract more money from women while paying them less. From the pink tax to the wage gap to structural biases in venture capital, the system is rigged to keep women at a financial disadvantage.

This isn’t just about fairness, it’s about economic loss, stunted innovation, and wasted potential.

So, the next time someone says gender inequality is a thing of the past, ask them:

If the system is so equal, why is it so expensive to be a woman?

Follow this series as we continue exposing the hidden economic forces shaping women’s financial realities, and what we can do to change them.

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Disclaimer

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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