Heterogeneity in Maternal Earnings After Childbirth by Age, Race and Ethnicity, Education, and Marital Status

• In Event: Advancing Equity? Evidence from Healthcare, Labor Markets, Energy Policy, and State Governance

Abstract

Background: Childbirth is a major turning point in women’s earnings, but little is known about how earnings losses differ across groups of mothers and across the earnings distribution.
Methods: We linked wage records to 33,342 first-time mothers who gave birth in 2016–2017 and followed their quarterly earnings from two years before to two years after birth. We used Poisson regression to examine how earnings differed by maternal age, education, race and ethnicity, and marital status, and whether these differences changed after birth. We used logistic regression to examine which mothers remained employed after birth, and unconditional quantile regression to assess whether the post-birth change in earnings varied across the earnings distribution among working mothers.
Results: Employment fell from a peak of 72% three quarters before birth to 54% in the quarter after birth and recovered only to 66% two years later. Racial and ethnic gaps narrowed for some groups, as Black mothers went from earning 22% less than White mothers to about the same, and Black and Hispanic mothers had about 20% higher odds of employment than White mothers after birth, largely because White mothers were more likely to stop working. The earnings gap between older and teen mothers shrank after birth. Mothers with a high school education or less were the most likely to leave work, and the earnings gap between them and mothers with a graduate degree grew after birth. Among working mothers, earnings fell by 44% at the 10th percentile after birth, compared with 12% at the 90th percentile
Conclusions: Childbirth lowers mothers’ earnings, in large part because many mothers leave work and struggle to return. These losses are unevenly distributed across the earnings distribution and across sociodemographic groups. The losses are more pronounced for low-earning and less educated mothers. In context of race and ethnicity, Black and Hispanic mothers did not experience larger losses than White mothers, as they were more likely to stay employed after birth. Policies that help mothers stay employed after birth, such as paid leave and affordable childcare, may reduce these inequalities.

Authors

• Memuna Aslam, Oregon State University
  Presenting Author

• David Rothwell, Oregon State University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author