Penalties or Premiums: Explaining Child Wage Effects in 13 High and Middle Income Countries

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 02. Gender

Abstract

We study wage effects of having children for working women in thirteen high- and middle-income countries. Building on evidence of working mothers’ lower wages compared to non-mothers in the US and Western Europe, we ask whether such child penalties exist in middle-income countries too. Secondly, we ask to what extent wage effects can be explained by labor market segmentation.
If mothers’ disadvantage is created at least in part by processes of self-selection and adaptation, they will be expected to occupy different labor market positions from non-mothers and may differ from them in terms of human capital, the types of jobs they hold, and firms they work in. Mothers may accumulate less human capital, if they take time out of the labor market around childbirth, work in more female-dominated sectors, work part-time jobs, and be less willing to commute.
We use the 2013 WageIndicator continuous online volunteer survey on wages and working conditions to analyze women’s wages in 13 countries in Latin America, South East Asia, Africa, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. Using multilevel random effects models and Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions, we find that in ten out of thirteen countries a raw child penalty does exist. Once we control for human capital, job and firm characteristics, only two have significant child penalties. We show that these mechanisms do not work in the same way in all countries. Mothers are primarily penalized for career breaks in some countries and for working in lower paid occupations or sectors in others.

Authors

• Janna Besamusca, University of Amsterdam

• Stephanie Steinmetz, University of Amsterdam

• Kea Tijdens, University of Amsterdam