Is There a Fatherhood Wage Premium? A Reassessment in Societies With Strong Male‐Breadwinner Legacies

Abstract

Objective: This study examines whether fatherhood sparks the wage attainment of men or rather entry into fatherhood is simply more typical for high-earning men and at times of wage growth during the career cycle. Background: Fatherhood premiums may contribute to gender economic inequalities, particularly in countries with strong male-breadwinner legacies such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Yet, as male-breadwinner norms have waned and policies have started fostering men's role as carers, wage premiums could be a thing of the past. Also, the mechanisms usually invoked to account for fatherhood premiums-effort allocation, couple specialization, and employer discrimination-seem of little relevance even in these countries. Entry into parenthood spurred by wage attainment is therefore scrutinized as an alternative source of the apparent premiums on average and across cohorts. Method: The author uses long-running panel data for both countries and three regression-based approaches (pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects estimation, and fixed effects individual-slope estimation).Results: Overall, fatherhood wage bonuses could not be detected on average as well as across birth cohorts. At best, estimates were compatible with modest premiums among older cohorts of men. Positive selection on both prior wage levels and wage growth was found to be largely responsible for the apparent wage boost. The contribution of selection on prior wage levels though has been fading across cohorts, meaning that men select into fatherhood less and less on the basis of time-invariant characteristics positively related to both wages and the chance of becoming a father. Conclusion: The link between fatherhood and wages appears to be more of a selection story than a causal one, even in contexts with strong male-breadwinner legacies.

Parenthood Wage Gaps Across the Life Course: A Comparison by Gender and Race

“…Our results point to slightly higher wage growth among childless men compared to young fathers within each racial group. Our results for fathers correspond with the arguments and findings by Killewald and Lundberg (2017), Ludwig and Brüderl (2018), and Mari (2019) that the fatherhood wage premium and men's marriage premium is primarily a story of selection. These two family demographic events, marriage and fatherhood, tend to occur in a life course stage characterized by complex selection into education, employment, and fatherhood, and men with high earnings potential tend to select into fatherhood and marriage.…”

Work and Family in the Second Decade of the 21st Century

“…A smaller literature on the wage effects of parenthood on men suggests it brings a modest wage bonus (Killewald, ), which has increased since the 1990s (Glauber, ). Using longitudinal survey designs, some point to a selection effect, such that men with high‐earning potential are more likely to become fathers (Mari, ), whereas others argue that processes within marriage and parenthood, such as partner specialization and sharing a residence, produce these bonuses (Killewald, ). Similar to the motherhood penalty, this bonus is unequally distributed, but here it is concentrated among the privileged.…”

Emotional and financial health during COVID‐19: The role of housework, employment and childcare in Australia and the United States

“…Men who lost their jobs may be more financially worried and anxious than women who lost employment because traditional norms emphasize men as breadwinners and providers. These experiences may be particularly salient for fathers for whom being financial providers is central to traditional breadwinner norms and expectations of being a “good” father (Coltrane, 1997; Mari, 2019). Women who stepped into more domestic work at the start of the pandemic may be more financially worried and emotionally strained by this reinforcement of traditional gender norms known to have long‐term financial and employment consequences (Christie‐Mizell, 2006).…”