Labor Market Penalties for Mothers in Italy

Abstract

We use a large Italian employer-employee matched dataset to study how motherhood affects women's working career in terms of labor force participation and wages. We confirm that the probability of exiting employment significantly increases for mothers of pre-school children; however, this is mitigated by higher job quality, human capital endowment and childcare accessibility. Most importantly, the availability of parttime jobs reduces their probability of moving out of the labor force. Women not leaving employment after becoming mothers experience lower wages than women with no pre-school child, and there are no signs of this gap closing 5 years after childbirth. Contrary to previous literature, the wage gap penalty emerges only among women working full-time, thanks to the high protection accorded to part-time jobs in Italy.

Interaction effects of region-level GDP per capita and age on labour market transition rates in Italy

“…One cause of this phenomenon is the negative impact of the recent global economic recession on the labour market. Females show a higher P02 than males, which reflects the organisational characteristics of Italian society in which females typically play an important role in child and family care (Theodossiou and Zangelidis 2009;Pacelli et al 2013). From this perspective and consistent with similar studies, the probability of voluntary exit from the workforce is higher for women than for men, particularly among married women (e.g.…”

Who is really ‘left behind’? Half a century of gender differences in the school-to-work transitions of low-educated youth

“…Finally, these findings have to be interpreted in light of the difficulties that women who succeed in entering the labor market experience when they seek to stay in or re-enter employment after having children. In Italy, the availability of public childcare for children aged 0-2 is negligible (Abendroth, Huffman, and Treas 2014;Pacelli, Pasqua, and Villosio 2013). If 50% of female early school leavers do not even obtain their first significant job within ten years after leaving the educational system, their future career prospects are likely to be greatly impaired after the transition to motherhood.…”

Low Fertility, Institutions, and their Policies

“…These enterprises tend to be small-on average 3.9 workers per firm in the country as a whole and 2.8 in the south. Among mothers of pre-school children, the probability of leaving the labor market is significantly lessened by better job quality, human-capital endowment, and accessibility to childcare (Pacelli et al 2013). Mother's employment does not vary appreciably according to the age of the youngest child (Table 1): 53.4 % of Italian mothers whose youngest child is under three are employed compared with 50.6 % of mothers whose youngest child is age 3-5, even though educational services are almost universal for this older age group.…”

“…55.3 %, maternal employment is slightly lower than the rate for women as a whole and significantly lower than the OECD average. Most importantly, the availability of part-time jobs (33 % of total working women in Italy) reduces the probability that mothers will leave the labor force entirely (Pacelli et al 2013). This might be due to a cohort effect because mothers of younger children belong to cohorts in which women in general have higher workforce participation rates.…”

“…Women who do not leave employment after becoming mothers experience a substantial penalty in term of wages, and there are no signs that this gap closes even five years after childbirth 14 (Pacelli et al 2013). About 40 % of working mothers confirm that they have difficulties reconciling work and family responsibilities due to rigid work schedules (no flexibility in the start or end of the work day or possibility to have short breaks for family reasons), shift work, and non-standard work hours (such as working during the night and/or on the weekend) (ISTAT 2007).…”