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Pregnancy or motherhood cost? A comparison of the child penalty for adopting and biological parents

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  • Philip Rosenbaum

Abstract

This study investigates whether the high labour market costs of having children for women can be explained by the associated biological costs. Estimating the significance of biological factors requires separating the effects of having a child from the effects of giving birth to a child. This separation is estimated by comparing child penalties between biological and adopting families. Adopting mothers neither go through pregnancy nor nursing, thus lessening the burden of the sex-specific costs of having children. I apply an event study by following parents over 16 years and find large and significant child penalties for all mothers although the penalties are slightly smaller for adopting mothers than those for biological mothers. Neither adopting nor biological fathers experience any child penalties. The results suggest that child penalties have some biological components, but the burden is on women regardless of whether they carry the biological costs related to pregnancy.

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  • Philip Rosenbaum, 2021. "Pregnancy or motherhood cost? A comparison of the child penalty for adopting and biological parents," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(29), pages 3408-3422, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:53:y:2021:i:29:p:3408-3422
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2021.1881431
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Stephen Bazen & Hélène Périvier & Xavier Joutard, 2021. "Measuring the Child Penalty Early in a Career: The Case of Young Adults in France," Working Papers halshs-03557555, HAL.
    2. Stephen Bazen & Xavier Joutard & Hélène Périvier, 2021. "Measuring the Child Penalty Early in a Career," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03451099, HAL.
    3. Sara Rellstab, 2024. "Gender norms and the child penalty: evidence from the Dutch bible belt," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(45), pages 5428-5441, September.
    4. Filip Pertold & Sofiana Sinani & Michal Soltes, 2023. "Gender Gap in Reported Childcare Preferences among Parents," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp770, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    5. Doris, Aedin & O'Neill, Donal & Sweetman, Olive, 2022. "Why Do the Earnings of Male and Female Graduates Diverge? The Role of Motherhood and Job Dynamics," IZA Discussion Papers 15805, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Moberg, Ylva & van der Vleuten , Maaike, 2022. "Mothers’ birth giving status and the division of parental leave. A comparison of adoptive and biological parents," Working Paper Series 2022:18, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    7. Jessica Nisén & Johanna Tassot & Francesco Iacoella & Peter Eibich, 2022. "The effect of fertility timing on women’s earnings at midlife in the UK," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2022-021, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.

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