Family-Wage Gap and Highly Skilled Women

Abstract

Family-Wage Gap and Highly Skilled Women Pooja Khosla, PhD Abstract The paper estimates the family wage gap (FWG), which is the pay gap between women with children and women without children, among highly skilled female scientists and researchers. The paper uses a rich dataset from the longitudinal Survey of Doctorate Recipients in the US to estimate FWG and to investigate its sources. The sources evaluated include, one, human capital characteristics such as: field of majors, school quality, and years since Ph.D. Two, maternity leaves and other self-reported-career breaks adjusted experience. Three, current job characteristics such as: extent to which job is related to highest degree, authority level, tenure status, occupation major group, choice to work part-time, working outside field of research, employment type, experience in current job, average number of hours worked and average number of weeks worked in a year. Lastly, the paper examines the role of family and the demographic status of women such as: marital status, number of children, age of the youngest child, age of woman at the time of first born, and timing of first born before or after graduation. The results indicate that the family wage gap does exist among women with Ph.D. and is about 6.8 percent. However, most of the existing wage difference can be explained by differences in human capital characteristics and current job characteristics. Results indicate that this wage difference increases with the increase in number of children. The wage gap is highest for married women, women with younger children, for women who opt for early motherhood, and for women who plan children before the doctoral degree. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijgws.v5n1a4