But female employees can reduce the damage by only working part-time for short periods.

The findings are part of a study which has tracked the lives of Australians over the last 10 years.

International speakers will join Australian academics to discuss the results this week at an Australian National University conference, A Decade of the Life Course.

Senior research fellow at the University of NSW's national drug and alcohol research centre Jenny Chalmers said even when women returned to full-time work, their pay was compromised by the time they spent working part-time.

''You might expect that part-time work could contribute to women's careers though at a lesser rate than full-time work but it seems that's not the case,'' she said.

Dr Chalmers said the findings could indicate that women who sought flexible part-time work to accommodate their family responsibilities might be forced to take on lower-level jobs.

''It could just be that's the way the labour market is constructed: that jobs that offer part-time hours are in [lower-paid] retail and service sector positions so not across the board,'' she said.

But women who were able to get part-time work with their existing employer fared better, as did women in managerial, professional and associate professional occupations. Dr Chalmers said part-time work could also hamper careers if employers chose not to delegate important jobs to part-time workers.

Emma Maslin put her career as a procurement officer at Treasury on the backburner when her son Eli was born 10 months ago. She now works 20 hours a week.

''I'm in the same role, but my workload has changed and I'm not given the same type of work that I was before purely because working part-time makes it more difficult to meet deadlines for certain things,'' she said.

''I'm still given work at the same level of responsibility, but there would be projects that I would not be given now because I'm part-time.''

Ms Maslin said she had ''excellent'' managers who were flexible and accommodating. However, she felt it may be hard for her to re-establish her career if she chose to go back to work full-time.

''I'd probably have a difficult time because I've missed out on some of the major projects I might have had if I was full-time ... I might have some skill loss,'' she said.