Motherhood Penalty Research Articles

COVID-19 and Gender Gaps in Employment, Wages, and Work Hours: Lower Inequalities and Higher Motherhood Penalty.

This paper investigates the dynamics and drivers of gender gaps in employment rates, wages, and work hours during the COVID-19 pandemic, relying on Estonian Labor Force Survey data for 2009–2020. We document that the pandemic has, if anything, reduced gender inequality in all three domains. The evolution of inequalities revealed cyclical pattern mirroring infection rate, with upswings largely driven by parenthood and gender segregation into industries. The results suggest that labor market penalties for women with young children and women employed in affected sectors may last longer than the pandemic, threatening to widen gender inequality in a long run.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41294-022-00198-z.

Paradox or Mitigation? Childless and Parent Gender Gaps across British, Finnish, and German Wage Distributions

Abstract Part of the welfare paradox is that generous family policies increase private sector employer discrimination particularly against higher-wage women. We argue instead that bundles of generous policies mitigate gender productivity differences among parents, and in turn the discrimination also affecting childless women. We test these assertions by estimating the two gaps across the British, Finnish, and German private sector wage distributions using 2000–2018 panel data and unconditional quantile regression. Because of smaller motherhood penalties below the median, parenthood gaps are smallest in Finland and Germany. In contrast, fatherhood premiums constitute most of the parenthood gap for high-wage German and British women, whereas high-wage British women are disadvantaged by motherhood penalties and fatherhood premiums. The childless gap is also smaller across the bottom of the Finnish and German wage distributions. Overall, our advanced modeling strategy finds strong support for the mitigating effects of generous family policies on gender wage gaps.

Maternity Benefit Amendment Act (2017): A ‘Humble Gift’ Causing Motherhood Penalty in India

The twin goals of addressing gender inequality and improving child development has manifested itself in the proliferation of maternity leave policies across the world. While maternity leave has become a standard entitlement in several countries, variations exist in policy design and their gendered outcomes, suggesting that policies are influenced by factors such as cultural and social norms. In 2017, the Government of India enacted the Maternity Benefit Amendment Act to extend paid maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks and to provide other non-monetary child benefits. The Government described it as a ‘humble gift’ to women, a day after the world celebrated International Women’s Day. While it has been recognised on some levels that certain policies entrench gender inequality, an area that remains unexplored is how enduring assumptions rooted in the traditional gendered division of domestic and non-domestic labour have underpinned maternity support, particularly in the context of the Global South. This piece intends to engage with this gap by exploring how maternity policy was created in India and how the Government has conceptualised gender. Challenges include the narrow construction of women and family, the limited coverage of the policy to biological mothers and formal workers, and the impact of employers’ economic decisions such as discriminatory recruiting practices against women in response to higher leave costs.

Motherhood Health Penalty: Impact of Fertility on Physical and Mental Health of Chinese Women of Childbearing Age.

BackgroundThe negative consequences of childbearing on mothers are called the motherhood penalty, and it manifests in the aspects of women's physical and mental health. In May 2021, China relaxed its birth policy that allowed a married couple to have three children. It gives women the opportunity to have more children, but also may increase more risks to mothers' physical and mental health.ObjectivesThe objectives of this study were to clarify the relationships between the fertility and the physical/mental health of women of childbearing age and empirically confirm the existence of the motherhood health penalty in China.Materials and MethodsUsing a nationally representative dataset from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey 2018, we examined the effects of fertility on the physical and mental health of Chinese women of childbearing age. Physical health was self-rated, and mental health was assessed according to the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale. The instrumental variable approach and the models of inverse probability of treatment weighting of propensity scores and regression adjustment were employed to overcome the endogeneity between fertility and health of women.ResultsThe empirical results showed that the total number of births had significant adverse impacts on the physical and mental health of women of childbearing age, which empirically demonstrated the existence of the motherhood health penalty in China. The results of heterogeneity analysis indicated that the physical and mental health of the rural women was more easily affected by childbearing compared with that of the urban samples. In a mechanism analysis, the pathways of income and the multiple roles played by mothers were found to mediate the impacts of the total number of births on the physical and mental health of women. The robustness checks showed that the results of this study were robust.ConclusionsThe findings of this study extend the motherhood penalty to the health domain, and they have important implications for improving healthcare policy for women of childbearing age in China and other countries and regions and promoting gender equality in the healthcare field.

Beyond measurement of the motherhood penalty: How social locations shape mothers' work decisions and stratify outcomes

AbstractDespite the shrinking of the gender wage gap, women with children continue to experience earnings and career disadvantages that women without children do not experience. This review first summarizes how the severity of the “motherhood penalty” is influenced by a woman's marital status and class in ways that perpetuate existing inequalities. Next, it outlines how the same factors also play salient roles in determining women's workforce behaviors upon transitioning to motherhood, largely dictating the extent to which women's earnings and careers are negatively impacted by the arrival of children. After establishing the stratified lines upon which mothers' decisions are made, and the disparate financial ramifications of their decisions, the paper concludes with a call for future research into the mechanisms that propel mothers' labor market decisions.

The Motherhood Penalty of Immigrants in France: Comparing the Motherhood Wage Penalty of Immigrants From Europe, the Maghreb, and Sub-Sahara With Native-Born French Women.

To date, relatively few studies analyzed the motherhood penalty as experienced by immigrant women. The principal objective of this research is to establish whether the negative effect of motherhood on wages is higher for immigrants than it is for the native population; and how this effect may vary across different immigrant regions of origin. Using data from the Enquête Revenus Fiscaux et Sociaux from 2009 to 2012 (INSEE, 2009–2012)1, a series of linear regression models were calculated to examine whether the effect of motherhood on wages differs for immigrant women and native women; and to what extent this effect varies across different immigrant origin groups. Specifically, this study explores the effect of motherhood on immigrant labor market integration in France from three regions of origin, as compared to native French women: immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco), and from European countries (each and every region of origin is considered separately in comparison to native French women). The results revealed substantial differences in the motherhood penalty between the different regions of origin and assert the existence of an especially pronounced motherhood penalty for mothers from the Maghreb. Given the gap in the research with regards to the cost of motherhood for immigrants in the labor market of the host country, this research sheds light on specific mechanisms influencing the integration patterns of immigrant women. Moreover, by choosing France, which is one of the main immigration destinations in Europe, and a country where the motherhood penalty for the native population is almost non-existent, this study provides a new perspective on the intersection of motherhood, immigration, and region of origin in the immigrants' labor-market integration process.

Moving Beyond Linear Regression: Implementing and Interpreting Quantile Regression Models With Fixed Effects

Quantile regression (QR) provides an alternative to linear regression (LR) that allows for the estimation of relationships across the distribution of an outcome. However, as highlighted in recent research on the motherhood penalty across the wage distribution, different procedures for conditional and unconditional quantile regression (CQR, UQR) often result in divergent findings that are not always well understood. In light of such discrepancies, this paper reviews how to implement and interpret a range of LR, CQR, and UQR models with fixed effects. It also discusses the use of Quantile Treatment Effect (QTE) models as an alternative to overcome some of the limitations of CQR and UQR models. We then review how to interpret results in the presence of fixed effects based on a replication of Budig and Hodges’s work on the motherhood penalty using NLSY79 data.

The evolving impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on gender inequality in the US labor market: The COVID motherhood penalty

AbstractWe explore whether COVID‐19 disproportionately affected women in the labor market using Current Population Survey data through the end of 2020. We find that male–female gaps in the employment‐to‐population ratio and hours worked for women with school‐age children have widened but not for those with younger children. Triple‐difference estimates are consistent with most of the reductions observed for women with school‐age children being attributable to additional childcare responsibilities (the “COVID motherhood penalty”). Conducting decompositions, we find women had a greater likelihood to telework, higher education levels and a less‐impacted occupational distribution, which all contributed to lessening negative impacts relative to men.

MOTHERHOOD PENALTY AND FATHERHOOD PREMIUM: ANALYSIS ON GENDER DISPARITY IN THE POST ONE-CHILD POLICY ERA IN CHINA

The Motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium have long been a popular topic among the research that focuses on gender inequality. In the post-reform era in China, a rapidly growing economy generates more opportunities for both mothers and fathers but with the potential to enlarge the existing income gaps. In particular, the Chinese government adopted the Two-Child Policy in 2016 and Three-Child Policy in 2021. Whether these recent changes in the population program have different impacts on mothers and fathers are yet to be fully explored. Therefore, this study aims to explore the relationship between the number of children and the income of the said household. Employing the data from China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017, we make use of both the multivariate linear model and the fixed effect model to examine the existence of motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium. In general, the relationship between household income and the number of children is significantly negative. However, when the time-variant changes are taken into consideration, fathers’ incomes increase with more children in the family. The relationship between mothers’ incomes and the number of children is ambiguous. The findings have multiple implications in the Chinese context and the relevant academic research.

Parenthood and labour market outcomes in Serbia

Using the Labour Force Survey data for the period 2014 to 2018 for Serbia, this paper explores the effect of parenthood on the labour market trajectories of parents, the so-called ?parenthood penalty?. We find that mothers are less likely than non-mothers to be active in the labour market when their children are very young, but this effect is transitory, and mothers of older children are actually more likely to be active than non-mothers. Similarly, we observe that mothers of small children are less likely to work overtime than non-mothers, but also that both parents of older children are more likely to engage in overtime work than men and women without children. We find a motherhood penalty in terms of hourly wages for mothers with younger children, but the penalty is not significant as children become older. By contrast, fathers are more likely to be active than non-fathers. We do not find an effect of fatherhood on hours worked or hourly wages. Overall, our results suggest that the motherhood penalty is present in Serbia in the early stages when children are young, but motherhood does not seem to have lasting effects on the labour market participation, hours worked, or wage rates of mothers. We do not find evidence of a fatherhood bonus, but we find that fathers are more likely to be active than non-fathers.

The Motherhood Penalty in Lebanon

The Motherhood Penalty in Lebanon

The Evolving Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Gender Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market: The COVID Motherhood Penalty

The Evolving Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Gender Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market: The COVID Motherhood Penalty

The Motherhood Penalty in Spain: The Effect of Full- and Part-Time Parental Leave on Women’s Earnings

AbstractThe persistence of a wage gap between mothers and non-mothers has been widely analyzed. However, we know little about the impact of family policies on this relative motherhood penalty. This study investigates the extent to which unpaid leave granted for longer-term care of young children after an initial spell of maternity leave affects the motherhood wage gap, and whether full-time leave and part-time leave differ in this respect. We use panel data from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives and rely on a sample consisting of 959,359 women aged twenty-five to forty-seven between 2005 and 2012. We find first a negative association between use and duration of unpaid parental leave and mothers’ wages, and second that a full-time unpaid leave carries higher wage penalties than a part-time unpaid leave of the same duration. This study has major implications for policymaking.

The Motherhood Penalty in Obstetrics and Gynecology Training.

Since 2017, the number of women enrolled in medical schools in the United States has increased steadily. For the average female graduate, residency training will coincide with peak childbearing years. Despite increasingly well-defined parental leave policies in other industries, there is no standardized approach across graduate medical education programs. Physician mothers, particularly those in surgical specialties, have also been shown to be at increased risk for major pregnancy complications and postpartum depression. In addition, despite excellent initiation rates, the majority of breastfeeding trainees struggle with low milk supply, and as few as 7% of physician mothers continue to breastfeed for 1 year. Although the medical field routinely advocates for the benefits of parental leave and breastfeeding for our patients, significant and comprehensive change is needed to ensure that graduate medical education trainees can follow physician-recommended postpartum guidelines without meaningful implications for their careers. In February 2020, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology changed its leave policy, allowing residents to take up to 12 weeks of paid or unpaid leave in a single year for vacation, parenting, or medical issues without extending their training. This change represents an important first step, and, as comprehensive women's health care professionals, our specialty should be leaders in normalizing family building for physicians-in-training. A culture change toward an environment of support for pregnant and parenting trainees and access to affordable, extended-hour childcare are also critical to enabling physicians at all levels to be successful in their careers.

Parity-specific motherhood penalties: Long-term impacts of childbirth on women's earnings in Japan.

The issue of motherhood earnings penalty has been well-documented in many Western countries. However, only a few studies discussed how earnings penalty evolves over time and varies across different parity of birth. Moreover, related research in non-Western developed countries is scant. This study contributes to the motherhood penalty literature by examining the long-term impacts (up to 10 years after childbirth) of the first and the second birth on women's employment, work hours, wage rates, and earnings in Japan. It proposes a novel research design based on the event-study approach and fixed effects regressions to quantify the dynamic effects of motherhood resulted from two consecutive birth transitions. Drawing on longitudinal data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers (from 1993 to 2015), our results show that both the first and the second birth trigger short-term earnings penalties by causing a considerable employment slump upon pregnancy. In the long run, while women's employment rates recover, work hours and wage rates remain significantly lower than their pre-pregnancy level, leading to the long-term earnings penalty. More importantly, the long-term negative impacts of childbirth on labor supply and wage rates result mostly from women's first-time rather than the second-time birth transition in Japan. These findings imply that motherhood in Japan imposes long-term penalties on women's earnings, primarily by depressing maternal labor supply after their first-time motherhood transition.

The Motherhood Penalty—Understanding the Gendered Role of Motherhood in the Life Histories of Incarcerated South African Women

The number of incarcerated women in South Africa has steadily increased over the last decade. However, as a minority in the carceral population of the country, their narratives are underrepresented. An emergent body of feminist, gender responsive research has found that motherhood is central to the narratives of incarcerated women. This study endeavored to document the life histories of 17 women who are incarcerated in the largest correctional center in South Africa. The narratives of these women explicate how the gendered role of motherhood impacted on their incarceration pathways, contributing to the developing literature of justice-involved women in South Africa.

Work and children in Spain: challenges and opportunities for equality between men and women

Over the past decades, Spain has seen a striking convergence between women’s and men’s participation in the labour market. However, this convergence has stalled since the early 2010s. We show that women still fare worse in several important labour market dimensions. Gender inequalities are further aggravated among people with children. Women with children under 16 are much more likely to be unemployed, work part-time or on temporary contracts than men with children of the same age. We show that it is unlikely that preferences alone can account for these gaps. A review of the evidence shows that family policies, such as paternity leave expansions, financial incentives in the form of tax credits for working mothers and subsidised or free childcare for very young children, could help reduce the motherhood penalty. However, such policies are likely to be more effective if combined with advances in breaking up traditional gender roles.

Material penalty or psychological penalty? The motherhood penalty in academic libraries in China

Wage differences and career development limitations faced by working mothers are often termed the motherhood penalty. However, little is known about the nature or extent of such penalty in Chinese academic libraries in the wake of rapid economic and social changes. Using a sample of 450 respondents from Chinese academic libraries, this study applies quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the penalties faced by mothers working as librarians. The results showed that mother librarians faced penalties not in terms of salary or professional title, but in terms of work-family balance and overall happiness. This study revealed a “hidden” psychological penalty that should be given more attention in the future.

The Single Motherhood Penalty as a Gender Penalty: Comment on Brady, Finnigan, and Hübgen

Previous articleNext article No AccessCommentary and DebateThe Single Motherhood Penalty as a Gender Penalty: Comment on Brady, Finnigan, and Hübgen1Sophie Moullin and Susan HarknessSophie MoullinPrinceton University Search for more articles by this author and Susan HarknessUniversity of Bristol and London School of Economics Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 127, Number 2September 2021 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/717886 Views: 507Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref © 2021 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Susan Harkness The Accumulation of Economic Disadvantage: The Influence of Childbirth and Divorce on the Income and Poverty Risk of Single Mothers, Demography 59, no.44 (Aug 2022): 1377–1402.https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-10065784Susan Harkness Single Mothers’ Income in Twelve Rich Countries: Differences in Disadvantage across the Distribution, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 702, no.11 (Nov 2022): 164–187.https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221120758

Sexual Division in Parenting: A Normative Context That Hinders Co-Responsibility

Recent decades have seen an increase in women’s employment rates and an expansion of egalitarian values. Previous studies document the so-called “motherhood penalty,” which makes women’s employment more difficult. Demands for greater shared child-rearing between parents are hindered by a normative climate that supports differentiated gender roles in the family. Using data from the Center for Sociological Research [Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas] (2018), this study shows that the Spanish population perceives that differentiated social images of motherhood and fatherhood still persist. The “sexual division in parenting” index is proposed and the profile of the individuals who most perceive this sexual division is analyzed. The results show that women and younger people are the most aware of this social normativity that unequally distributes child care, making co-responsibility difficult. The political implications of these results are discussed.