&gt;  motherhood drags female earnings down. .... Yet one minority appears immune to this scourge: lesbians.<p>&gt; if employers promote them on the assumption that they will not have children and so devote more time to work than straight colleagues...<p>(Edited Some Spelling Issues SRY)<p>This seems to be the correct empirical evidence for me. I greatly admire people with a strong work ethic BUT it usually comes down to how many priorities you have above your priority to work. I feel like I have a strong work ethic but I can not compete with single, no children workers who put work above everything else or Frank Sinatra &#x2F; Jimmy Johnson (Football Coach) who placed their work above their families.