On average, mothers earn lower wages than childless women. This well-established finding is referred to as the ''motherhood penalty.'' In this review, we summarize the main theoretical explanations for the motherhood penalty, and briefly discuss which theories have received empirical support. We evaluate research that explores variation in the motherhood penalty by important demographic and job-related characteristics. Additionally, we highlight recent methodological advances used to estimate the penalty. The review concludes with suggestions for future research in this area.Both authors contributed equally to this work.

ࡗThe Impact of Domestic Work on Men's and Women's Wages Past research has consistently found that the negative relationship between housework and wages is stronger for women than for men. This article tests a potential explanation for this difference by focusing on the fact that men and women typically perform different types of household chores. Traditionally ''feminine'' and ''masculine'' task types are likely to interfere with work differently, because they vary as to when and how often they must be performed. Based on longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households, fixed-effects regression results show that only time spent in female housework chores has a negative effect on wages. Furthermore, gender differences in the effect of housework disappear upon disaggregating housework into task types. This research suggests that a more equitable distribution of not only the amount, but also the type, of housework performed by men and women in the home may lead to a narrowing of the gender gap in wages.Over the past few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the percentage of married women participating in the labor force. Among married women with children younger than 6 years old, 64% worked outside the home in 1998, compared to only 19% in 1960 (U.S. Bureau of the Census,

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Using data from a U.S. midwestern sample of mothers and fathers, the authors examine whether using workplace flexibility policies alters time spent in housework and child care. They hypothesize that an individual's policy use will lead to more time in domestic labor and that his or her spouse's policy use will lead to less time in domestic labor. Several results support their hypotheses. Mothers who work part-time spend more time in housework and their husbands spend less time in housework. Also, mothers who work at home spend more time in child care. One policy has the opposite of the predicted effect: Wives with flexible work schedules do less housework, and their husbands do more. Overall, mothers' policy use has counterbalancing effects on their own and their spouses' domestic labor time, implying that policy use has little net impact on total domestic labor time within dual-earner families.

While flexibility in the location of work hours has shown positive organizational effects on productivity and retention, less is known about the earnings effects of telecommuting. We analyze weekly hours spent working from home using the 1989–2008 panels of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. We describe the demographic and occupational characteristics of the employees engaged in telecommuting, then track their earnings growth with fixed-effects models, focusing on gender and parental status. Results show substantial variation in the earnings effects of telecommuting based on the point in the hours distribution worked from home. Working from home rather than the office produces equal earnings growth in the first 40 hours worked, but “taking work home” or overtime telecommuting yields significantly smaller increases than overtime worked on-site. Yet most observed telecommuting occurs precisely during this low-yield overtime portion of the hours distribution. Few gender or parental status differences emerged in these processes. These trends reflect potentially widespread negative consequences of the growing capacity of workers to perform their work from any location. Rather than enhancing true flexibility in when and where employees work, the capacity to work from home mostly extends the work day and encroaches into what was formerly home and family time.

Using unique data from a survey of University of Michigan Law School graduates, we test various models of how sex differences in pay, labor supply and job settings should have evolved as women entered the elite male field of law. We compare the sex gap in earnings 15 years after graduation for two cohorts of lawyers and find that it has remained constant over time. In both cohorts, men earn 52 percent more than women, 17 percent more than women with similar characteristics, and 11 percent more than women with similar characteristics in the same job settings. Sex differences in hours worked have increased over time and explain more of the sex-based earnings gap, while sex differences in job settings and years spent in private practice have declined and explain less of the gap.

Based on studies showing health advantages for breastfeeding mothers and their infants, pediatricians and other breastfeeding advocates encourage new mothers to breastfeed their babies for at least the first six months of their infants' lives, arguing that breast milk is best for infants, families, and society, and it is cost free. Few empirical studies, however, document how the decision to breastfeed instead of formula-feed is associated with women's post-birth earnings. This is an important omission, given that the majority of women today work for pay, and many work in job environments incompatible with breastfeeding. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, our results show that mothers who breastfeed for six months or longer suffer more severe and more prolonged earnings losses than do mothers who breastfeed for shorter durations or not at all. The larger post-birth drop in earnings for long-duration breastfeeders is due to a larger reduction in labor supply. We discuss the implications of these findings for gender equality at home and at work.

Using unique data from University of Michigan Law School graduates, the authors examine sex differences in promotion to partnership among lawyers. The authors investigate three steps in the partnership process: (1) the decision to attrite early from private practice, (2) the attainment of partnership among those who do not attrite, and (3) determinants of partners' earnings. Results show that men are less likely than women to leave private practice and more likely than women to become partners, even after controlling for a number of individual characteristics. Among partners, men earn significantly more than women. There is no evidence of a direct marriage or parenthood penalty, but lawyers who have taken time out of the labor force to attend to child care responsibilities are less likely to become partners and earn less if they do become partners. These findings provide strong indirect evidence that women lawyers face multiple glass ceilings in the workplace. M ore than 40 percent of recent law school graduates are women, and almost 40 percent of associates in large firms are women (Epstein et al. , and family issues. Past research has examined the effect of time spent in housework on men's and women's wages. She is currently examining employment outcomes of former welfare recipients. Other research examines the relationship between workfamily policies and time spent in housework, men's and women's employment behavior around childbirth, the sex-based earnings gap among lawyers, and the impact of welfare reform on the employment of single mothers. Mary E. Corcoran is a professor of political science, public policy, social work, and women's studies at the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the effects of discrimination on economic status and on welfare and employment policies.