The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has conferred its organization's prestigious Reuben Hill Award to Michelle J. Budig and Melissa J. Hodges, both of the Sociology Department at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Their article, "Differences in disadvantage: Variation in the motherhood penalty across white women's earnings distribution," was published in the October 2010 issue of American Sociological Review

Budig and Hodges broke new ground by using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine whether the size of the motherhood penalty, as well as the factors explaining this penalty, vary with the earnings level of white women. Although they found a wage penalty for motherhood at all earnings levels, mothers earning the lowest pay experienced the largest penalty. Factors associated with the motherhood penalty also differed by earnings level.  For mothers with low pay, family resources, work effort, and family-friendly job characteristics largely accounted for the motherhood penalty while, for high income mothers, lost human capital resulting from having children was associated with the motherhood penalty. This study deepens our understanding of how the motherhood penalty is differentially experienced by women at various earnings levels and underscores the support needs of low income mothers.

The Reuben Hill Award is sponsored by NCFR's Research and Theory Section. It is given annually in recognition of an outstanding article that combines theory and research methodology in the analysis and interpretation of a significant family issue. The award will be presented at the November 2011 annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations in Orlando, FL. 

The National Council on Family Relations is the nation's premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of over 3500 family researchers, practitioners and educators.  For more information on the National Council on Family Relations or its scholarly publications, contact NCFR at 1-888-781-9331 or visit its website at www.ncfr.org .