“I'm ready to have a grandbaby.” My mother was holding my niece, a two year old ball of sunshine and energy. A good ploy. The kid was cute. 

“You'll have to wait until I'm a CEO.” 

She turned to my husband. “I'm ready to have a grandbaby.”

“I guess you're waiting until Siran is a CEO.” 

I'm Siran, one of the 35% of people looking to hit a certain point in our careers before we’d be comfortable having children. Unfortunately, 3 years after having children, only 36% of women work full time, due predominantly to the costs of childcare and the rigid structure of the traditional workplace. 

This phenomenon is known as the motherhood penalty. 

Let’s get real on the motherhood penalty

The motherhood penalty is when women’s pay decreases once they become mothers. Due to the motherhood penalty, mothers make 70 cents for every dollar paid to fathers.

There are many factors at play here that create the motherhood penalty: rigid work hours; unconscious biases around commitment; accommodations at work offered to mothers but not fathers; time constraints as women handle 75% of unpaid care and household work; defaulting to traditional gender norms once children arrive; exorbitant costs of childcare; and more.

That’s why we started Mirza. We’re on a mission to close the gender pay gap by giving you the tools to make informed decisions about starting a family

Meet Mirza

With Mirza, we’ve taken the decades and volumes of academic research on the motherhood penalty and distilled it into technology that helps you make informed decisions.

Our solution centers around providing both parents the information they need to make proactive decisions about having children while growing a career. By planning ahead and budgeting for upcoming costs, individuals can feel confident and prepared for their new life goals. 

To start, we help you make an informed decision around return to work, finances and career:

And once you’ve made decisions on what you want to do at work, we help you stick to those decisions by distributing household tasks:

We give you “soft” commitments as well, in addition to tasks around the home:

I want this! How do I get Mirza?

Sign up to be a beta tester, and we’ll be in touch! You can also find us at @mirzasayshey on all the socials.