The family gap in wages: What wombmates reveal

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. We shed new light on the effects of having children on hourly wages by exploiting access to data on the entire population of employed same-sex twins in Denmark. Our second contribution is the use of administrative data on absenteeism; the amount of hours off due to holidays and sickness. Our results suggest that childbearing reduces female hourly wages but the principal explanation is in fact mothers' higher levels of absence. We find a positive wage premium for fathers.JEL Classification: J13, J24, J31, J71

Who takes the child to the doctor? Mom, pretty much all of the time

“…The younger the child, the more services were required: children less than 2 years old had an average of seven services per year, while children between 2 and 5 had an average of six services per year and children older than 6 had an average of three services per year. That children are less sick with age agrees with the negative correlation between mother's absenteeism and child age that was found by Simonsen and Skipper (2012). Next, we will examine whether mothers' earnings power is correlated with the fm.…”

“…Using U.S. data, Pal and Waldfogel (2014) found that mothers in 2007 were doing no better than mothers in 1977, since the family gap had remained constant at 5-6%. Even in Denmark, a country with generous family leave, mothers faced a penalty of between 5.1% and 5.7% in 2006 (Simonsen & Skipper 2012).…”

Evidence-based gender equality policy and pay in Latin America and the Caribbean: progress and challenges

“…Goldin concluded that gender pay gaps could be explained by career interruptions or flexible schedules. Indeed, childbearing tends to reduce the wage of mothers worldwide (Simonsen and Skipper 2012;ILO 2015c). In Latin America and the Caribbean, Piras and Ripani (2005) studied labor patterns in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru and found that in 1999, mothers with children age 7 or younger were less likely to have a paid job compared to men or women without children.…”

Long‐Term Consequences of Early Parenthood

“…Raising children is a key explanation for why women generally earn less than men. Mothers bear most of the costs in terms of lost skills and earnings opportunities when education and careers are interrupted (Adda, Dustmann, & Stevens, ; Kleven, Landais, & Søgaard, ; Nielsen, Simonsen, & Verner, ), whereas fathers experience child premia (Simonsen & Skipper, ). Early parenthood may have worse consequences because of its characteristics: Pregnancy is more often unplanned, the family unit is rarely established at the time of conception, and the young parents are at a critical juncture in life.…”