Does the Motherhood Wage Penalty Differ by Individual Skill and Country Family Policy? A Longitudinal Study of Ten European Countries

Halldén, Karin; Levanon, Asaf; Kricheli‐Katz, Tamar

doi:10.1093/sp/jxv032

Cited by 25 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This "motherhood (earnings) penalty" is a well-established finding in many Western countries (e.g., Correll et al 2007;Harkness and Waldfogel 2003;Sigle-Rushton and Waldfogel 2007a). Country-comparative research suggests that the strength of the motherhood effect on women's employment and personal earnings is shaped by contextual factors, such as women's opportunities to reconcile work and family (Abendroth et al 2014;Budig et al 2012Budig et al , 2016Cukrowska-Torzewska 2017;Gangl 2004;Gornick and Meyers 2003;Halldén et al 2016;Harkness and Waldfogel 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Long-Term Costs of Family Trajectories: Women’s Later-Life Employment and Earnings Across Europe

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The "motherhood earnings penalty" is a well-established finding in many Western countries. However, a divide between mothers and nonmothers might oversimplify reality given that the family life course has diversified over the last decades. In addition, whether family choices have consequences for women's employment and earnings in later life is not well known, particularly in a comparative perspective. Using data on 50-to 59-year-old women from the Generations and Gender Programme, the British Household Panel Survey, and SHARELIFE for 22 European countries, we derive a typology of women's family trajectories and estimate its association with women's later-life employment and earnings. Whereas family trajectory-related differences with regard to employment were relatively small, our findings reveal a clear, long-lasting family trajectory gradient in earnings. Childless women (with or without a partner) as well as single mothers had higher personal earnings than women whose family trajectories combined parenthood and partnership. Moreover, in societies in which reconciliation of work and family during midlife is less burdensome, labor market outcomes of women following different family trajectories converge. Our findings show that women's fertility and partnership behavior are inevitably interrelated and jointly influence employment and earning patterns until later in life. The results imply that promoting equal employment opportunities could have long-lasting effects on women's economic independence.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Long-Term Costs of Family Trajectories: Women’s Later-Life Employment and Earnings Across Europe

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We put this argument to a stringent test in a unique empirical setting in Japan. We focused on parental leave policy, which is considered the most controversial component of family policy, unlike other childcare benefits that consistently show positive effects on womem’s employment outcomes (e.g., Boeckmann et al 2015; Budig et al 2015; Halldén et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most previous research analyzes cross-sectional microdata from multiple countries and examines the effect of country-level family policies on individual-level labor market outcomes without considering the mediating role of employers (e.g., Gornick, Meyers, and Ross 1998; Korpi et al 2013; Mandel and Semyonov 2005, 2006). To account for unobserved heterogeneity on the employee side, other studies adopt sophisticated statistical methods (Boeckmann et al 2015; Budig, Misra, and Boeckmann 2015) or use longitudinal microdata (Evertsson and Duvander 2011; Halldén, Levanon, and Kricheli-Katz 2016). These previous studies make important contributions by testing the effect of family policies on female employees, but they fail to tease out employer-side mechanisms, as microdata collected from household or individual surveys rarely provide information about employers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy Generosity, Employer Heterogeneity, and Women’s Employment Opportunities: The Welfare State Paradox Reexamined

Mun

Jung

2018

Am Sociol Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Scholars of comparative family policy research have raised concerns about potential negative outcomes of generous family policies, an issue known as the “welfare state paradox.” They suspect that such policies will make employers reluctant to hire or promote women into high-authority jobs, because women are more likely than men to use those policies and take time off. Few studies, however, have directly tested this employer-side mechanism. In this article, we argue that due to employer heterogeneity, as well as different modes of policy intervention such as mandate-based and incentive-based approaches, generous family policies may not always lead to employer discrimination. Adopting a quasi-experimental research design that classifies employers based on their differential receptivity to family policy changes, we compare their hiring and promotion of women before and after two major family policy reforms in Japan, one in 1992 and another in 2005. Our analysis using panel data of large Japanese firms finds little evidence of policy-induced discrimination against women. Instead, we find that employers who voluntarily provided generous leave benefits prior to government mandates or incentives actually hired and promoted more women after the legal changes, and employers who provided generous benefits in response to government incentives also increased opportunities for women.

show abstract

“…Although there is plenty of literature on (determinants of ) wage gaps (Blau, 2016;Blau & Kahn, 2017), such analyses often focus on socioeconomic characteristics such as level of education, rather than income position. For instance, Halldén et al (2016) found that although public childcare helped reduce the motherhood pay gap, this effect did not seem to differ among higher and lower educated mothers. On the other hand, Budig and Hodges (2010) examined motherhood wage penalty across the wage distribution, finding it to be bigger for low-wage mothers (for a methodological comment, see Killewald & Bearak, 2014).…”

Section: What Income Effect?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When it comes to family policies, it has often been observed-and demonstrated throughout this Handbook-that women's economic activity tends to be more equal to men's in welfare states based on dual-earner/caregiver policy models, characterized by public childcare for young children, brief periods of well-paid parental leave for both parents, as well as individual taxation, compared to in the traditional breadwinner model-characterized by very long periods of leave for mothers, childcare only for somewhat older children and joint taxation (Korpi, 2000;Lewis, 1992). With respect to specific policies, public childcare has been a key determinant for women's employment (Olivetti & Petrongolo, 2017), as well as the motherhood wage penalty (Halldén, Levanon, & Kricheli-Katz, 2016), in particular when it is available, affordable, and of adequate quality (Gambaro, Stewart, & Waldfogel, 2015; also see Chapter 8 by Vandenbroeck in this volume). The provision of parental leave has also been instrumental to women's employment (Moss, Duvander, & Koslowski, 2019), as long as it has been adequately paid (Gornick & Meyers, 2003) and not overly long (Nieuwenhuis, Need, & Van der Kolk, 2017a).…”

Section: The Different Determinants Of Horizontal and Vertical Incomementioning

confidence: 99%

Family Policy: Neglected Determinant of Vertical Income Inequality

Nieuwenhuis

2020

The Palgrave Handbook of Family Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This chapter develops a research agenda for examining family policy outcomes with respect to vertical economic inequality between households, arguing that family policies have wrongly been neglected as a determinant of vertical economic inequality. Three questions are central to this research agenda: who uses family policy, to what income effect, and with whom do people live? Family policies have been linked to women’s employment and earnings, and to lower vertical income inequality. Yet, the literature also makes abundantly clear that family policies come with trade-offs along the lines of gender and class, as well as Matthew effects. These mechanisms need to be better understood to integrate family policy in analyses of—and recommendation against—high and rising inequality. The challenge ahead is to understand what (combination of) family policies may be inclusive to a wide range of families across the full width of the income distribution.

show abstract

Does the Motherhood Wage Penalty Differ by Individual Skill and Country Family Policy? A Longitudinal Study of Ten European Countries

Cited by 25 publications

References 54 publications

The Long-Term Costs of Family Trajectories: Women’s Later-Life Employment and Earnings Across Europe

The Long-Term Costs of Family Trajectories: Women’s Later-Life Employment and Earnings Across Europe

Policy Generosity, Employer Heterogeneity, and Women’s Employment Opportunities: The Welfare State Paradox Reexamined

Family Policy: Neglected Determinant of Vertical Income Inequality

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About