Fatherhood Premium Research Articles

Parenthood and Couples’ Relative Earnings in Norway

AbstractWith the advance of the gender revolution, income dynamics in couples are changing. Nonetheless, in most Western societies, parenthood still promotes specialized gender roles. Utilizing Norwegian register data on all married and cohabiting couples born 1946–1989, we investigate possible changes in the associations between parenthood and within-couple inequality in earnings in the years 2005–2014. Precisely, using interactions and fixed effects models, we compare the development of within-couple gender gaps in earnings over time between childless couples and couples with children of different ages, and within couples before and after childbirth. Results showed that the gender gap in earnings in couples increased with the number of children and was most distinct among couples with children below 6 years. However, the association between parenthood and within-couple inequality in earnings was reduced across the study period, a development partly driven by a decreasing fatherhood premium evident from 2009 onwards. Not only women’s but also men’s income development is now negatively affected by having young children in the household. Our findings, thus, indicate important changes in how men and women prioritize paid labour after a childbirth.

Is There a Fatherhood Wage Premium? A Reassessment in Societies With Strong Male‐Breadwinner Legacies

AbstractObjectiveThis study examines whether fatherhood sparks the wage attainment of men or rather entry into fatherhood is simply more typical for high‐earning men and at times of wage growth during the career cycle.BackgroundFatherhood premiums may contribute to gender economic inequalities, particularly in countries with strong male‐breadwinner legacies such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Yet, as male‐breadwinner norms have waned and policies have started fostering men's role as carers, wage premiums could be a thing of the past. Also, the mechanisms usually invoked to account for fatherhood premiums—effort allocation, couple specialization, and employer discrimination—seem of little relevance even in these countries. Entry into parenthood spurred by wage attainment is therefore scrutinized as an alternative source of the apparent premiums on average and across cohorts.MethodThe author uses long‐running panel data for both countries and three regression‐based approaches (pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects estimation, and fixed effects individual‐slope estimation).ResultsOverall, fatherhood wage bonuses could not be detected on average as well as across birth cohorts. At best, estimates were compatible with modest premiums among older cohorts of men. Positive selection on both prior wage levels and wage growth was found to be largely responsible for the apparent wage boost. The contribution of selection on prior wage levels though has been fading across cohorts, meaning that men select into fatherhood less and less on the basis of time‐invariant characteristics positively related to both wages and the chance of becoming a father.ConclusionThe link between fatherhood and wages appears to be more of a selection story than a causal one, even in contexts with strong male‐breadwinner legacies.

Providing for a Family in the Working Class: Gender and Employment After the Birth of a Child

AbstractNavigating the labor market in today’s economy has become increasingly difficult for those without a college degree. In this study, we ask whether and how working-class men and women in the United States are able to secure gains in wages and/or earnings as they transition to parenthood or increase family size. We look closely at child parity, employment behavior (e.g., switching employers, taking on multiple jobs, increasing hours), and occupation in the year after the birth of a child. Using the 2004 and 2008 panels of the Survey for Income and Program Participation (SIPP), we employ fixed-effects models to examine the impact of changing labor market behavior or occupation on wages and earnings after the birth of a child. We find limited evidence that low- and middle-skill men experience a “fatherhood premium” after the birth of a child, conditional on child parity and occupation. For men, nearly all occupations were associated with a “wage penalty” after the birth of a child (parity varies) compared to the service sector. However, overall higher wages in many male-dominated and white-collar occupations make these better options for fathers. For women, we see clear evidence of a “motherhood penalty,” which is partly accounted for by employment behaviors, such as switching to a salaried job or making an occupational change.

Workplace Variation in Fatherhood Wage Premiums: Do Formalization and Performance Pay Matter?

Parenthood contributes substantially to broader gender wage inequality. The intensification of gendered divisions of paid and unpaid work after the birth of a child create unequal constraints and expectations such that, all else equal, mothers earn less than childless women, but fathers earn a wage premium. The fatherhood wage premium, however, varies substantially among men. Analyses of linked workplace-employee data from Canada reveal how organizational context conditions educational, occupational and family-status variation in fatherhood premiums. More formal employment relations (collective bargaining and human resource departments) reduce both overall fatherhood premiums and group differences in them, while performance pay systems (merit and incentive pay) have mixed effects. Shifting entrenched gendered divisions of household labour is thus not the only pathway to minimizing fathers’ wage advantage.

The Fatherhood Premium: Mirage or Reality? How Do Occupational Characteristics Matter

The Fatherhood Premium: Mirage or Reality? How Do Occupational Characteristics Matter

Class Differences in Establishment Pathways to Fatherhood Wage Premiums

Organizations have been argued to favor fathers over childless men and skilled fathers over less‐skilled fathers, but group wage inequalities vary across as well as within establishments. This article theorizes class differences in the contribution of being employed in a high‐wage firm to the fatherhood wage premium. Analyses of linked employer–employee data from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey reveal that sorting into high‐wage establishments accounts for 60% of the economy‐wide premium for less‐educated and nonprofessional fathers, whereas high‐skilled fathers tend to work in lower wage establishments but receive the largest net fatherhood premium within firms. Among the subsample of fathers who changed employers in the past 5 years, less‐skilled fathers fared worse, whereas high‐skilled fathers sorted into high‐wage firms. Results thus suggest that employment in a higher wage firm likely enables less‐skilled men to transition to fatherhood, whereas high‐wage employers may discriminate in favor of only high‐skilled fathers in hiring.

Gender differences in labour market integration trajectories of recently arrived migrants in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTThis study investigates gender differences in recently arrived migrants’ labour market activity and occupational status both shortly after arrival and with increasing length of stay. We examine the role of education, household composition and traditional gender role values by estimating multi-group multilevel models based on three waves of the New Immigrants to the Netherlands Survey. In line with findings regarding gender gaps in labour market behaviour, recent female migrants are less active on labour market than their male counterparts, and we observe a clear motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium on the number of hours worked. Men and women show only marginal differences in their occupational statuses. Changes over time do not differ between men and women, indicating persistent gender inequality in labour market attainment. Moreover, interesting differences between the nationalities were found. Polish migrants show the highest activity levels and lowest occupational status, also when compared to Bulgarians. Spanish migrants hold the highest occupational statuses. Recent Turkish migrants seem to be better integrated and show fewer gender differences than the more established Turkish minority in the Netherlands.

Do Employers Prefer Fathers? Evidence from a Field Experiment Testing the Gender by Parenthood Interaction Effect on Callbacks to Job Applications

In research on fatherhood premiums and motherhood penalties in career-related outcomes, employers discriminatory behaviours are often argued to constitute a possible explanation for observed gender ...

'Motherhood penalty' and 'fatherhood premium'? Fertility effects on parents in China.

Many previous empirical findings on 'motherhood penalty' and 'fatherhood premium' remain inconclusive due to potential selection biases. China's regional variation in exemptions to the one-child policy enables us to use the gender of the first child as a powerful instrumental variable (IV) in identifying the gendered fertility effects. We aim to estimate the causal effects of fertility on fathers' and mothers' various outcomes in China. Using the IV approach, this paper examines the gender-specific fertility effects on parents' time use, income, and subjective well-being, using data for 2010 from the China Family Panel Studies. Results show that while fathers spend more time at work and less time taking care of family members with more children, mothers report better subjective well-being. Moreover, fathers gain self-confidence in both their careers and the future, and mothers are happier, more satisfied with life and report better social ability. Our findings do not directly support the gendered fertility effects on parents. However, the differential fertility effects on specific domains for mothers versus fathers are consistent with household specialisation. By interpreting this conclusion within the context of China's one-child family planning policy, our research suggests that parents would do better if the one-child policy were abolished - i.e., if parents were allowed to have more children.

Gender, Parenthood and Wage Differences: The Importance of Time-Consuming Job Characteristics

Using data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (2000, 2010), we investigate how the gender wage gap varies with occupational prestige and family status and also examine the extent to which this gap is explained by time-consuming working conditions. In addition, we investigate whether there is an association between parenthood, job characteristics and wage (as differentiated by gender). The analyses indicate that there are gender differences regarding prestige-based pay-offs among parents that are partly explained by fathers’ greater access to employment characterized by time-consuming conditions. Separate analyses for men and women demonstrate the presence of a marriage wage premium for both genders, although only men have a parenthood wage premium. This fatherhood premium is however only present in high-prestigious occupations. Compared with childless men, fathers are also more advantaged in terms of access to jobs with time-consuming working conditions, but the wage gap between fathers and childless men is not explained by differences in access to such working conditions.

Gender inequalities in occupational prestige across the working life: An analysis of the careers of West Germans and Swedes born from the 1920s to the 1970s

Using retrospective occupational biography data from West Germany and Sweden we analyze gender inequalities in occupational careers in three birth cohorts (1920s to early 1940s, mid-1940s to early-1960s, and mid-1960s to late 1970s). We ask whether gender inequalities are generated at labour market entry, whether career progression and parenthood weaken or strengthen such gender inequalities, and how they differ across cohorts in the two countries. With data from the German Life History Study and the Swedish Level of Living Surveys, we used growth curve analysis to model career developments in occupational prestige. We find less change in occupational prestige across careers in Germany than in Sweden. In both countries a clear female disadvantage in occupational prestige in the oldest cohort has turned into a female advantage in the youngest cohort. This is only partially explained by changes in educational attainment levels. We also find a substantial motherhood penalty in careers in both countries, which has shifted to a fatherhood premium in Sweden over time.

Gay Pay for Straight Work

Drawing from the gender wage gap literature, we explore four possible causes of sexual minority earnings gaps: (1) variation in human capital and labor force participation, (2) occupational and industrial sorting, (3) differences in the institutional organization of the public and private sector, and (4) different returns to marriage and parenthood. Using the 2006 Census of Canada, we find that heterosexual men earn more than gay men, followed by lesbians and heterosexual women. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions show that industry of employment, rather than occupation, disadvantages gay men, lesbians, and heterosexual women. High levels of educational attainment lead to employment in lucrative occupations, but sexual minorities earn significantly less than heterosexual men within these occupations. Wage gaps are reduced in the public sector for heterosexual women, gay men, and lesbians. Finally, we find that heterosexual women experience a motherhood penalty, heterosexual men experience a fatherhood premium, and both receive a premium for marriage; however, the presence of children and marriage have no effect on the earnings of either gay men or lesbians in conjugal relationships.

Gendered Parenthood Penalties and Premiums across the Earnings Distribution in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Parenthood explains some of the gender earnings gap, but its effects differ among women and men and across countries. Wave 6 LIS data and regressions of the recentered influence function are used to compare effects of parenthood across the unconditional earnings distribution in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The three countries are considered more liberal welfare regimes, but still differ in within- and between-gender economic inequality. Australia has slightly greater income equality than the other two countries. Results reveal that fatherhood premiums and motherhood penalties are smaller in Australia, as are differences between the highest- and lowest-earning parents. Australian and British mothers are more likely to work part-time, but controlling for work hours, motherhood penalties in those countries are smaller across the bottom half of the distribution than in the United States. Motherhood penalties across the upper half of the earnings distribution are more similar in the three countries and decrease as earnings increase. The lowest-earning men in all three countries face small but significant fatherhood penalties, whereas high-earning British and US fathers garner significant premiums as compared with childless men. Parenthood penalties and premiums therefore reflect relative socio-economic (dis)advantage among both women and men, as well as between them.

Does Specialization Explain Marriage Penalties and Premiums?

Married men's wage premium is often attributed to within-household specialization: men can devote more effort to wage-earning when their wives assume responsibility for household labor. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of the specialization hypothesis, arguing that, if specialization causes the male marriage premium, married women should experience wage losses. Furthermore, specialization by married parents should augment the motherhood penalty and the fatherhood premium for married as compared to unmarried parents. Using fixed-effects models and data from the NLSY79, we estimate within-gender differences in wages according to marital status and between-gender differences in the associations between marital status and wages. We then test whether specialization on time use, job traits, and tenure accounts for the observed associations. Results for women do not support the specialization hypothesis. Childless men and women both receive a marriage premium. Marriage augments the fatherhood premium but not the motherhood penalty. Changes in own and spousal employment hours, job traits, and tenure appear to benefit both married men and women, although men benefit more. Marriage changes men's labor market behavior in ways that augment wages, but these changes do not appear to occur at the expense of women's wages.

A Reconsideration of the Fatherhood Premium

Past research that asserts a fatherhood wage premium often ignores the heterogeneity of fathering contexts. I expect fatherhood to produce wage gains for men if it prompts them to alter their behavior in ways that increase labor-market productivity. Identity theory predicts a larger productivity-based fatherhood premium when ties of biology, coresidence with the child, and marriage to the child’s mother reinforce one another, making fatherhood, and the role of financial provider in particular, salient, high in commitment, and clear. Employer discrimination against fathers in less normative family structures may also contribute to variation in the fatherhood premium. Using fixed-effects models and data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), I find that married, residential, biological fatherhood is associated with wage gains of about 4 percent, but unmarried residential fathers, nonresidential fathers, and stepfathers do not receive a fatherhood premium. Married residential fathers also receive no statistically significant wage premium when their wives work full-time. About 15 percent of the wage premium for married residential fathers can be explained by changes in human capital and job traits.

Penalties and premiums: The impact of gender, marriage, and parenthood on faculty salaries in science, engineering and mathematics (SEM) and non-SEM fields

The prevalence of gender wage gaps in academic work is well documented, but patterns of advantage or disadvantage linked to marital, motherhood, and fatherhood statuses have been less explored among college and university faculty. Drawing from a nationally representative sample of faculty in the US, we explore how the combined effects of marriage, children, and gender affect faculty salaries in science, engineering and mathematics (SEM) and non-SEM fields. We examine whether faculty members’ productivity moderates these relationships and whether these effects vary between SEM and non-SEM faculty. Among SEM faculty, we also consider whether placement in specific disciplinary groups affects relationships between gender, marital and parental status, and salary. Our results show stronger support for fatherhood premiums than for consistent motherhood penalties. Although earnings are reduced for women in all fields relative to married fathers, disadvantages for married mothers in SEM disappear when controls for productivity are introduced. In contrast to patterns of motherhood penalties in the labor market overall, single childless women suffer the greatest penalties in pay in both SEM and non-SEM fields. Our results point to complex effects of family statuses on the maintenance of gender wage disparities in SEM and non-SEM disciplines, but married mothers do not emerge as the most disadvantaged group.

Raising network resources while raising children? Access to social capital by parenthood status, gender, and marital status

Does raising non-adult children facilitate or restrict access to social capital as network resources? Using data from a national sample of adults in the United States, I do not find evidence for the direct effect of parenthood on the three dimensions of social capital (diversity, extensity, and quality), but instead I find evidence for its interaction effects on the quality of social capital. There is marginal evidence that parenthood status is associated with the quality of social capital positively for men but negatively for women. There is evidence that parenthood status is associated with the quality of social capital positively for the married but negatively for the unmarried. Also parenthood status is associated with the quality of social capital negatively for unmarried women but positively for the other three gender-marital groups, in particular unmarried men. These findings suggest the structural interplay of parenthood status with gender and marital status, and indicate the motherhood penalty, the fatherhood premium, the single-parenthood penalty, the married-parenthood premium, and the single-motherhood penalty in reaching higher-quality, rather than more diverse and extensive, social capital.

Inequality in the Rewards for Holding up Half the Sky: Gender Wage Gaps in China's Urban Labour Market, 1988-1994

The intuition underlying our analysis of these data is simple and direct. Each yearbook entry shows the proportion of female workers and the average wage of all workers. If mens wages exceed womens wages by a substantial margin we expect a negative association between the proportion of female workers and the average wage: the higher the proportion of women the lower the average wage. Applying econometric methods to large numbers of such observations permits us to obtain statistical estimates of the gender wage gap in Chinas urban labour markets. We seek answers to a series of interrelated questions. Do men earn more than women? If so is the wage gap large or small? Does the male-female wage differential rise or fall over time? To what extent can the wage gap be attributed to specific factors such as location economic sector type of ownership (state collective other) or educational attainments? What is the size and trend of the residual male-female wage inequalities which persist after we apply statistical controls for these factors? To what extent are women crowded into low-paying industries? (excerpt)