The wage penalty for motherhood: Evidence on discrimination from panel data and a survey experiment for Switzerland

Oesch, Daniel; Lipps, Oliver; McDonald, Patrick

doi:10.4054/demres.2017.37.56

Cited by 39 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Effect sizes are also in line with those found investigating genderby-parental-status interactions in previous studies for other European countries (e.g. Bygren et al, 2017;Oesch et al, 2017). The small magnitude of these effects stands out, particularly in comparison with that highlighted for the US context (Correll et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Overall we find little evidence of a motherhood penalty in hiring in two sex-typical jobs in the Netherlands, in line with what field experiments and vignette studies have shown in some European countries (Petit, 2007;Bygren et al, 2017), but not others (Oesch et al, 2017;González et al, 2019;Hipp, 2019). In our experiments, this holds even if Dutch employers expect mothers to be less committed to their job and work fewer hours a week than men and women without kids.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Differently, a comparably large field experiment in Spain found lower callback probabilities for women especially if with children (González et al, 2019). A vignette study in Switzerland found evidence of a motherhood penalty for women applying for a HR assistant position (Oesch et al, 2017), and a field experiment in Germany found a motherhood penalty in hiring for an event manager position (Hipp, 2019). We add to this debate by examining how employers evaluate job candidates at the intersection of gender and parental status in the Netherlands.…”

mentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Both are commonly featured in the literature on motherhood penalties in labour markets (e.g. Correll et al, 2007;Gangl and Ziefle, 2009;Bygren et al, 2017;Oesch et al, 2017). Both theories also pin down employer discrimination to stereotypical beliefs about groups.…”

Section: Statistical Discrimination: Risk Aversion Against Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender, Parenthood, and Hiring Intentions in Sex-Typical Jobs: A Survey Experiment

Mari¹,

Luijkx²

2020

Preprint

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We ran a survey experiment with Dutch employers to investigate hiring discrimination in sex-typical jobs. We ask if women are especially discriminated against when they have children, whether discrimination applies similarly in different occupations, and whether statistical discrimination or status-characteristic theories best account for discriminatory practices (if any).Employers rate fictitious candidates for either a female-typical job (primary-school teacher) or a male-typical job (software engineer). Employers are found to display a slight preference for female candidates when filling a teacher post, although such bias is less strong for female applicants with children. No such ranking is found for a software engineer vacancy, nor do we find different salary offers across candidates and across vacancies. Employers do not appear to favour men over women for positions likely to be on the career track, as predicted by statistical discrimination theories, nor do they expect women to be less capable than men, as posited by status-characteristic theory. Female candidates with children, however, are expected to be less committed to their job and work fewer hours, especially in the teacher experiment. Such expectations seem to have small consequences for the hiring decisions and salary offers Dutch employers make in our study.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

mentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Statistical Discrimination: Risk Aversion Against Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender, Parenthood, and Hiring Intentions in Sex-Typical Jobs: A Survey Experiment

Mari¹,

Luijkx²

2020

Preprint

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“…FSA can integrate these characteristics into vignettes alongside other important signals, like education, experience, and referrals, adding to the literature on a fast-changing labour market, the nature of which affects women and young mothers especially (Correll et al 2007). FSA has been shown to be useful in measuring discrimination against women (see Jasso and Webster 1997;Auspurg et al 2017), but as yet only Oesch et al (2017), using a factorial survey targeting the members of a Swiss Human Resources association, have carried out employer-based research in this area. They show that employer decisions play a role in the motherhood wage penalty in Switzerland, with respondents offering mothers wages up to 3% lower, on average, than those offered to childless women.…”

Section: Recent and Further Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Factorial Survey Analysis Improves Our Understanding of Employer Preferences

McDonald

2019

Swiss Journal of Sociology

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Factorial Survey Analysis (FSA) is an analytical tool that presents respondents with fictional situations (“vignettes”) to be rated or judged. In this paper we study the use of FSA in labour market sociology, with a particular focus on employer-based surveys, and what they can teach us about hiring preferences. FSA is useful in this context as it targets employers directly and comes close to a causal design. This review article seeks to pinpoint the contributions FSA has made to the field, identify its limits and propose topics in which it may be useful.

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How Personal Relationships Affect Employment Outcomes: On the Role of Social Networks and Family Obligations

Lalive

Oesch

Pellizzari

2023

Withstanding Vulnerability Throughout Adult Life

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This chapter shows that individuals’ trajectories in personal networks and the labour market are closely intertwined. A person’s network facilitates access to jobs in different ways. As people create relationships and accumulate social contacts, they obtain more information about job opportunities and embark on more rewarding careers. However, personal relationships may also hamper employment prospects. If employers expect that the obligations accruing from family-care reduce productivity, the consequence will be stunted careers and lower wages, notably for mothers. Yet the extent to which social relations help or hinder work trajectories varies across Europe and crucially depends on employment and family policies. Moreover, the spill-over effects between the two life domains travel both ways as employment outcomes also affect personal relationships. A prime example is how job loss affects the stability of partnerships. While recessions reduce the divorce rate at the aggregate level, the minority of individuals who lose their jobs are more likely to see their couples break up. Our chapter discusses the theory of spill-over effects between social relations and employment and reviews cutting-edge research in economics and sociology on the topic.

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The wage penalty for motherhood: Evidence on discrimination from panel data and a survey experiment for Switzerland

Cited by 39 publications

References 29 publications

Gender, Parenthood, and Hiring Intentions in Sex-Typical Jobs: A Survey Experiment

Gender, Parenthood, and Hiring Intentions in Sex-Typical Jobs: A Survey Experiment

How Factorial Survey Analysis Improves Our Understanding of Employer Preferences

How Personal Relationships Affect Employment Outcomes: On the Role of Social Networks and Family Obligations

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