[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Implicit Costs of Motherhood over the Lifecycle: Cross-Cohort Evidence from Administrative Longitudinal Data

Author

Listed:
  • Neumeier, Christian
  • Sørensen, Todd
  • Webber, Douglas
Abstract
The explicit costs of raising a child have grown over the past several decades. Less well understood are the implicit costs of having a child, and how they have changed over time. In this paper we use longitudinal administrative data from over 70,000 individuals in the Synthetic SIPP Beta to examine the earnings gap between mothers and non-mothers over the lifecycle and between cohorts. We observe women who never have children beginning to out earn women who will have children during their 20s. Gaps increase monotonically over the lifecycle, and decrease mono- tonically between cohorts from age 26 onwards. In our oldest cohort, lifetime gaps approach $350,000 by age 62. Cumulative labor market experience profiles show similar patterns, with experience gaps between mothers and non-mothers generally increasing over the lifecycle and de- creasing between cohorts. We decompose this cumulative gap in earnings (up to age 43) into portions attributable to time spent out of the la- bor force, differing levels of education, years of marriage and a number of demographic controls. We find that this gap between mothers and non-mothers declines from around $220,000 for women born in the late 1940s to around $160,000 for women born in the late 1960s. Over 80% of the change in this gap can be explained by variables in our model, with changes in labor force participation by far the best explanation for the declining gap. Comparing our oldest cohort as they approach retirement to the projected lifecycle behavior of the 1965 cohort, we find that the earnings gap is estimated to drop from $350,000 (observed) to $282,000 (expected) and that the experience gap drops from 3.7 to 2.1 years. We also explore the intensive margin costs of having a child. A decomposi- tion of earnings gaps between mothers of one child and mothers of two children also controls for age at first birth. Here, we find a decline in the gap from around $78,000 for our oldest cohorts to around $37,000 for our youngest cohorts. Our model explains a smaller share of the intensive margin decline. Changes in absences from the labor market again explain a large amount of the decline, while differences in age at first birth widen the gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Neumeier, Christian & Sørensen, Todd & Webber, Douglas, 2017. "The Implicit Costs of Motherhood over the Lifecycle: Cross-Cohort Evidence from Administrative Longitudinal Data," GLO Discussion Paper Series 20, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/155356/1/GLO_DP_0020.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sanders Korenman & David Neumark, 1992. "Marriage, Motherhood, and Wages," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(2), pages 233-255.
    2. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    3. Marianne Bertrand & Emir Kamenica & Jessica Pan, 2015. "Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 571-614.
    4. V. Joseph Hotz & Susan Williams McElroy & Seth G. Sanders, 2005. "Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(3).
    5. Jane Waldfogel, 1998. "Understanding the "Family Gap" in Pay for Women with Children," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 137-156, Winter.
    6. Heckman, James J & Hotz, V Joseph & Walker, James R, 1985. "New Evidence on the Timing and Spacing of Births," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 179-184, May.
    7. Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Changes in Women's Hours of Market Work: The Role of Returns to Experience," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(4), pages 557-587, October.
    8. Sankar Mukhopadhyay, 2012. "The Effects Of The 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act On Female Labor Supply," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(4), pages 1133-1153, November.
    9. Douglas A. Webber, 2016. "Firm-Level Monopsony and the Gender Pay Gap," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 323-345, April.
    10. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    11. Siv S. Gustafsson & Shirley Dex & Cécile M. M. P. Wetzels & Jan Dirk Vlasblom, 1996. "Women`s labor force transitions in connection with childbirth: A panel data comparison between Germany, Sweden and Great Britain," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 9(3), pages 223-246.
    12. Heckman, James J & Walker, James R, 1990. "The Relationship between Wages and Income and the Timing and Spacing of Births: Evidence from Swedish Longitudinal Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1411-1441, November.
    13. Kenneth Troske & Alexandru Voicu, 2013. "The effect of the timing and spacing of births on the level of labor market involvement of married women," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 483-521, August.
    14. Lundberg, Shelly & Rose, Elaina, 2000. "Parenthood and the earnings of married men and women," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 689-710, November.
    15. Jorge M. Agüero & Mindy S. Marks, 2011. "Motherhood and Female Labor Supply in the Developing World: Evidence from Infertility Shocks," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(4), pages 800-826.
    16. Deborah J. Anderson & Melissa Binder & Kate Krause, 2003. "The Motherhood Wage Penalty Revisited: Experience, Heterogeneity, Work Effort, and Work-Schedule Flexibility," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(2), pages 273-294, January.
    17. Wendy Sigle-Rushton & Jane Waldfogel, 2007. "Motherhood and women's earnings in Anglo-American, Continental European, and Nordic Countries," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 55-91.
    18. Boschini, Anne & Håkanson, Christina & Rosén, Åsa & Sjögren, Anna, 2011. "Trading off or having it all? Completed fertility and mid-career earnings of Swedish men and women," Working Paper Series 2011:15, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    19. Chinhui Juhn & Kristin McCue, 2016. "Evolution of the Marriage Earnings Gap for Women," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 252-256, May.
    20. Amalia Miller, 2011. "The effects of motherhood timing on career path," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(3), pages 1071-1100, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fontenay, Sébastien & Tojerow, Ilan, 2020. "Work Disability after Motherhood and How Paternity Leave Can Help," IZA Discussion Papers 13756, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Danielle Sandler & Nichole Szembrot, 2019. "Maternal Labor Dynamics: Participation, Earnings, and Employer Changes," Working Papers 19-33, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Barbara Downs & Lucia Foster & Rachel Nesbit & Danielle H. Sandler, 2023. "Same-Sex Couples and the Child Earnings Penalty," Working Papers 23-25, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nieto, Adrián, 2021. "Native-immigrant differences in the effect of children on the gender pay gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 654-680.
    2. Kunze, Astrid, 2014. "The family gap in career progression," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 29/2014, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    3. Robert M. Sauer & Christopher Taber, 2021. "Understanding women's wage growth using indirect inference with importance sampling," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(4), pages 453-473, June.
    4. Astrid Kunze, 2020. "The effect of children on male earnings and inequality," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 683-710, September.
    5. Sara Cools & Simen Markussen & Marte Strøm, 2017. "Children and Careers: How Family Size Affects Parents’ Labor Market Outcomes in the Long Run," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(5), pages 1773-1793, October.
    6. Robert M. Sauer & Christopher R. Taber, 2017. "Indirect Inference with Importance Sampling: An Application to Women’s Wage Growth," NBER Working Papers 23669, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Sara Cools & Marte Strøm, 2016. "Parenthood wage penalties in a double income society," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 391-416, June.
    8. Sylvia Frühwirth-Schnatter & Christoph Pamminger & Andrea Weber & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2016. "Mothers' long-run career patterns after first birth," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(3), pages 707-725, June.
    9. Nikolay Angelov & Per Johansson & Erica Lindahl, 2016. "Parenthood and the Gender Gap in Pay," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 545-579.
    10. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Jakob Egholt Søgaard, 2019. "Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 181-209, October.
    11. Cemal Eren Arbatlı & Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2020. "Diversity and Conflict," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 727-797, March.
    12. Lucifora, Claudio & Meurs, Dominique & Villar, Elena, 2021. "The “mommy track” in the workplace. Evidence from a large French firm," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    13. Céline Detilleux & Nick Deschacht, 2021. "The causal effect of the number of children on gender‐specific labour supply elasticities to the firm," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 2-24, January.
    14. Markussen, Simen & Strøm, Marte, 2015. "The Effects of Motherhood," Memorandum 19/2015, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    15. Ma, Xinxin, 2022. "Parenthood and the gender wage gap in urban China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    16. Nizalova, Olena Y. & Sliusarenko, Tamara & Shpak, Solomiya, 2016. "The motherhood wage penalty in times of transition," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 56-75.
    17. Sylvia Frühwirth-Schnatter & Christoph Pamminger & Andrea Weber & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2014. "When Is The Best Time To Give Birth?," Economics working papers 2014-08, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    18. Paweenawat, Sasiwimon Warunsiri & Liao, Lusi, 2022. "Parenthood penalty and gender wage gap: Recent evidence from Thailand," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    19. Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf & Weber, Andrea & Frühwirth-Schnatter, Sylvia & Pamminger, Christoph, 2014. "When Is The Best Time To Give Birth - Career Effects Of Early Birth Decisions," CEPR Discussion Papers 10132, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Fitzenberger, Bernd & Sommerfeld, Katrin & Steffes, Susanne, 2013. "Causal effects on employment after first birth — A dynamic treatment approach," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 49-62.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Family Gap; Opportunity Cost of Children; Gender Pay Gap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J17 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Value of Life; Foregone Income

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.