Motherhood Employment Penalty and Gender Wage Gap Across Countries: 1990–2010

Chu, Yu-Wei Luke and Cuffe, Harold E. and Doan, Nguyen (2020): Motherhood Employment Penalty and Gender Wage Gap Across Countries: 1990–2010.

Abstract

In this paper, we use twin birth as an instrument to estimate the effects of fertility on female labor force participation using 70 censuses from 36 countries in 1990–2010. We document a strong relationship between the gender wage gap and the size of the motherhood penalty. The penalty is smallest in countries with small gender wage gaps. Both cross- and within-country relationships between motherhood penalty and gender wage gap remain strong and negative even when we condition on per-capita GDP and educational attainment. Our estimates suggest that a reduction of 1-percentage-point in the gender wage gap is associated with a decrease of 0.45–0.65 percentage-points in the estimated motherhood employment penalty.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Child penalty, female labor supply, family size, gender wage gap, twin birth
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility ; Family Planning ; Child Care ; Children ; Youth; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J18 - Public Policy; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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