No one is going to make the case that motherhood could or should improve a woman's earnings. Motherhood is diametrically opposed to careerhood; you give to one

No one is going to make the case that motherhood could or should improve a woman's earnings. Motherhood is diametrically opposed to careerhood; you give to one what you take from the other. This article merely states that there's still a gap between heterosexual and homosexual women when adjusting for motherhood, but I think it's safe to say that gap would be much narrower. The article, as all mainstream media on the topic too often does, has an evident bias toward the working woman in contrary to the mother. When you realize this bias in our media, you see it everywhere. This article has language like: "motherhood drags female earnings down", "they could face positive discrimination, if employers promote them on the assumption that they will not have children", "it could be that in same-sex couples women do not feel obliged to do as much childcare or housework, giving them more freedom to fulfil their potential in the workplace". The message is clear (and again; it's the message delivered by our entire media): being a mother is bad, girls. Devote your life to your career -- that will give you purpose and legacy. > I think you're pushing some kind of fertility agenda The word "agenda" implies you feel a need to discredit my ideas that we as a society should have an above-replacement fertility rate. Why? For what it's worth, I believe our dying population is a result of a much wider cultural shift; sub-replacement fertility rates are just a symptom. My 'agenda' -- I'm happy to call it that because I believe it is the defining issue of our age, and everything humanity has worked for hangs on us getting this right -- is on much baser elements. > the women only being good enough to raise kids Psychological and sociological research over the past 50 years has managed to confirm what humans universally knew for millennia: women have a predilection towards caring, and men have a predilection towards providing. I agree that we should avoid pigeonholing people, but you would have to have quite the cognitive dissonance to avoid recognizing this pattern among the two sexes. With such strong predilections, it makes sense then to encourage boys and girls to aspire to different things based on their tendencies and abilities to contribute the most back to their society. Men work on the world as it is and push it forward a bit, and women ensure there is a better generation to follow -- in general. Note that recognizing and celebrating tendencies among the sexes does not require that we dictate someone's path: if a girl becomes a successful author then her husband could become the predominant carer. Whatever! My point is that we need to ensure there are capable generations to follow. If we don't, we lose everything. If you would like to make the case for why equality is inherently good, is worth striving for, and is achievable, I'm all ears. I'm also curious to see you support your claim that our birth rates are not problematic (or are you agreeing with me here that there are deeper issues at play?).