How to ask for a raise or promotion after maternity leave

The timing feels wrong in a way that is hard to explain to someone who hasn't been in it.

You've just come back from leave. You're still recalibrating what your days look like, still figuring out the childcare logistics, still adjusting to being back in a professional context after months away. And the advice from everyone around you, spoken or unspoken, seems to be: keep your head down, prove you're still committed, don't ask for anything too soon.

That advice is understandable. It is also, in most cases, wrong.

The months following your return from maternity leave are not the wrong time to negotiate for your worth. They are simply a time when negotiating requires more preparation and more clarity than it might otherwise. And the cost of not asking, of deferring indefinitely to a future moment that feels more appropriate, tends to compound in ways that are hard to recover from.

What actually happens to women's pay after having children

The numbers here are worth knowing clearly, because they provide the context for why this conversation matters and why it needs to happen intentionally rather than waiting for the right moment.

The "motherhood penalty" is one of the most consistently documented phenomena in labour economics. A 2022 report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that women's hourly pay is broadly similar to men's before they have children, but ten years after the birth of a first child, women earn on average 45% less per hour than men. The gap is almost entirely explained by the reduction in hours and seniority that follows the birth of a first child, and by the extent to which career progression slows or stalls during the years of intensive parenting.

In the US, the American Association of University Women found that within a year of leaving the workforce for caregiving, women's earnings permanently and significantly diverge from those of peers who did not take the same break.

These gaps are not inevitable. They are, in many cases, the accumulated result of individual decisions, including the decision not to negotiate at the exact moment when negotiation would make the most difference.

Why women don't ask after maternity leave

The reasons are specific and worth naming, because they are each addressable.

The impostor syndrome that comes with return. Coming back after a period away from a professional environment can produce a disproportionate loss of professional confidence. Research by psychologist Valerie Young, whose work on impostor syndrome is foundational, found that returning mothers consistently underestimate their own skills relative to their actual performance. They feel less entitled to ask because they feel less sure of their standing.

Fear of being seen as demanding. The employee who has just received statutory maternity pay and the practical support of a functioning leave policy can feel that asking for more is ungrateful. This fear is almost always disproportionate to the reality.

Uncertainty about timing. The sense that you should prove yourself first, re-establish your presence, show you're serious before bringing up compensation. This is the deferral that compounds most.

Lack of preparation. The ask that fails is usually the one made without data, without a specific number and without a clear account of the value being offered.

How to actually do it

The conversation that works is specific, prepared and grounded in evidence rather than in how long you've been there or how much you feel you deserve.

Before you ask:

• Gather the data on market rate. What are people in equivalent roles, with equivalent experience, earning? Glassdoor, LinkedIn Salary Insights and industry-specific salary surveys are all useful starting points. You need a number, not a feeling.
• Document your contributions. What did you accomplish in the period before leave? What are you contributing now that you're back? Specific examples, ideally with measurable outcomes, are what makes a compensation conversation persuasive rather than personal.
• Decide on your specific ask. A number or a range, not a vague request for recognition. "I would like to discuss moving my salary to X" is a conversation. "I feel I deserve more" is not.
• Choose the moment. Not the first week back. Not in the middle of a busy period. A calm, scheduled one-to-one with your manager, framed in advance as a conversation about your role and your development.

The conversation itself

Less effective approach. More effective approach

Raising it without prior notice

Scheduling it as a dedicated conversation

Framing it around personal need ("I need more money")

Framing it around professional value ("here is what I contribute")

Apologising for asking

Stating the ask directly and then waiting

Accepting the first response without follow-up

Asking for a timeline if the answer is "not now"

Conflating maternity leave with the ask

Separating the return from the negotiation entirely

The point about separating return from negotiation is worth dwelling on. The fact that you have just returned from maternity leave is not the basis of the ask. Your skills, your track record and your market value are the basis of the ask. The timing of when you raise it is incidental to the content of what you're asking for.

If the response is not an immediate yes, ask specifically: "What would need to happen for this conversation to reach a different outcome in three months?" A clear set of criteria is more useful than a vague reassurance and gives you something to return to.

On the confidence piece

The internal preparation is as important as the external one.

Returning mothers have often been in conditions that erode professional confidence: extended time away from a professional context, the competence-doubt that Valerie Young describes, the ambient messaging that suggests you should be grateful simply to have a job to return to.

"Negotiation is not a fight. It is a conversation about value." - Negotiation principle, attributed to various sources

If the confidence required for this conversation feels genuinely out of reach right now, Returning to a career after years at home: the real emotional journey addresses the specific psychology of the return to work and is worth reading as a foundation for this conversation. And if the guilt about advocating for yourself professionally is part of what's getting in the way, Mom guilt about working: how to stop letting it run the show addresses that particular internal obstacle directly.

You earned your place at that table before you left. You haven't lost it while you were gone.

Further reading: Linda Babcock & Sara Laschever, Women don't ask: negotiation and the gender divide (2003). Sheryl Sandberg, Lean in: women, work and the will to lead (2013). Institute for Fiscal Studies, women and work report (2022).