Abstract

Research on maternal discrimination in hiring has been largely concentrated in Western contexts, where the "motherhood penalty," the systematic disadvantage mothers face relative to childless women and men, is well documented. In Kazakhstan as part of the post-Soviet world, employed motherhood may carry a different cultural context and legacy, and motherhood bias may therefore also operate differently. There is a separate stream on the intersection of policy, management, and psychology that examines how agentic traits, such as competence, ambition, and independence, shape hiring evaluations. This paper applies the multidimensional model of agency provided by Ma et al. (2022) in two vignette experiments conducted in Kazakhstan, representing the first experimental investigation of maternal hiring discrimination in Central Asia.

The first experiment employed a 2×2 between-subjects design in which evaluators (N=171, alumni of graduate programs) assessed a hypothetical job candidate varying by gender (female vs. male) and parental status (parent vs. non-parent). Contrary to hypotheses derived from Western literature, mothers did not receive lower hiring recommendations than childless women. Female candidates were rated significantly higher on independence and commitment relative to male candidates. However, these favorable agentic attributions did not translate into corresponding hiring advantages, which requires further investigation.

The second experiment, using the same evaluator sample, manipulated parental leave duration across three levels (six months, one and a half years, and three years) to examine how leave length shapes hiring evaluations. Extended leave of three years significantly reduced hiring recommendations relative to shorter durations. Mediation analyses indicated that this penalty operated through diminished perceptions of competence and work priority. Male evaluators who were themselves parents imposed the most pronounced penalty for extended leave.

These findings point that in Kazakhstan, where working motherhood has long been a social norm rather than an exception, gender and parental status alone do not reliably predict hiring disadvantage. Extended duration of leave, on the other hand, works as a more consequential signal than motherhood status itself, with penalties operating through perceptions of competence and work commitment. Extending parental leave entitlements without addressing how prolonged absence is evaluated by employers may have unintended consequences and undermine the very goals such policies are designed to achieve.