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Impact of first-birth career interruption on earnings: evidence from administrative data

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Abstract

This paper uses unique administrative data to expand the understanding of the role women's intermittency decisions play in the determination of their wages. We demonstrate that treating intermittency as exogenous significantly overstates its impact. The intermittency penalty also increases in the education level of the woman. The penalty for a woman with a high school degree with an average amount of intermittency during six years after giving birth to her first child is roughly half the penalty for a college graduate. We also demonstrate the value of using an index to capture multiple dimensions of the intermittency experience, and we illustrate the importance of firm dynamics in the determination of a woman's wage.

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  • Julie L. Hotchkiss & M. Melinda Pitts & Mary Beth Walker, 2014. "Impact of first-birth career interruption on earnings: evidence from administrative data," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2014-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedawp:2014-23
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    Cited by:

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    2. Finlay, Jocelyn E., 2021. "Women’s reproductive health and economic activity: A narrative review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    3. Sarah H. Bana & Kelly Bedard & Maya Rossin‐Slater, 2020. "The Impacts of Paid Family Leave Benefits: Regression Kink Evidence from California Administrative Data," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 888-929, September.
    4. Shulamit Kahn & Donna Ginther, 2017. "Women and STEM," NBER Working Papers 23525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. John Bailey Jones & Minhee Kim & Byoung G. Park, 2020. "The Wage Penalty for Married Women of Career Interruptions: Evidence from the 1970s and the 1990s," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(4), pages 783-807, August.
    6. Eunhye Kwak, 2022. "The emergence of the motherhood premium: recent trends in the motherhood wage gap across the wage distribution," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1323-1343, December.
    7. Wendy A. Stock & Myron Inglis, 2021. "The longer‐term labor market impacts of paid parental leave," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 838-884, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    intermittency; administrative data; career interruptions; fertility; labor supply; wage differentials;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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