Different Story, Same Ending: Family-related Gender Earnings Penalties and Premiums Across Two Generations

• In Event: 403 - Section on Sex and Gender Paper Session. Gender and Economic Inequality

Abstract

Recent research suggests that the gender gap in earnings has almost vanished among young millennials, who comprise the youngest cohort of workers born between 1980 and 1984. Nevertheless, women in this cohort still report lingering sources of gender inequity, particularly in terms of the work-family conflicts that have also plagued baby boomer women. We apply hybrid mixed effects models to two longitudinal surveys – the NLSY 1979 baby boomer cohort, and the NLSY1997 millennial cohort - to compare earnings disparities by gender, marriage, and parental status for young workers. These models allow us to parse out between-gender differences in earnings and changes over time within respondents’ earnings that coincide with marriage and childbirth. Our findings show that between-gender inequalities have become less pronounced compared to those observed among the boomer generation, suggesting that millennial wives, mothers, and, most notably, single women have made some labor market gains. However, marriage and parenthood effects that reward men and disadvantage women still persist and explain much of the within-gender inequality that occurs with changing family responsibilities. Finally, we find that the timing of family transition is an important determinant of future earnings, especially among young women.

Authors

• Michelle Lee Maroto, University of Alberta

• Brian Serafini, University of Washington