IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17658.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Child Penalties and Marriage Dissolution

Author

Listed:
  • Ayllón, Sara

    (Universitat de Girona)

  • Kirkpatrick, Linda

    (Auckland University of Technology)

  • Plum, Alexander T.

    (Auckland University of Technology)

Abstract

This paper investigates how a change in marital status can influence labour market-related child penalties, by comparing married couples and those whose marriage is dissolved after the birth of their first child. We take advantage of the rich administrative data from New Zealand and show that child penalties vary greatly by civil status: whereas the employment penalty for married mothers is 32%, for mothers who get divorced within seven years of giving birth, it is about 5% and indistinguishable from that facing fathers. The same is true of earnings, indicating that divorced mothers have a much stronger attachment to the labour market than do married mothers. Our section on mechanisms points to differences in economic need as the driver behind the discrepancy in child penalties by marital status.

Suggested Citation

  • Ayllón, Sara & Kirkpatrick, Linda & Plum, Alexander T., 2025. "Child Penalties and Marriage Dissolution," IZA Discussion Papers 17658, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17658
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17658.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garnero, Andrea & Kampelmann, Stephan & Rycx, François, 2013. "Part-time Work, Wages and Productivity: Evidence from Belgian Matched Panel Data," IZA Discussion Papers 7789, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Johanna Posch & Andreas Steinhauer & Josef Zweimüller, 2019. "Child Penalties across Countries: Evidence and Explanations," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 122-126, May.
    3. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2012. "The Most Egalitarian of All Professions: Pharmacy and the Evolution of a Family-Friendly Occupation," NBER Working Papers 18410, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. François Rycx & Andrea Garnero & Stephan Kampelmann, 2014. "part-time work, Wages and Productivity :Evidence from Matched panel data," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/245672, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. V. Jacobs & F. Rycx & M. Volral, 2022. "Wage Effects of Educational Mismatch According to Workers’ Origin: The Role of Demographics and Firm Characteristics," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 459-501, November.
    2. Elena Grinza & Stephan Kampelmann & François Rycx, 2020. "L’union fait la force? Evidence for wage discrimination in firms with high diversity," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(2), pages 181-211, June.
    3. Marie Boltz & Bart Cockx & Ana Maria Diaz & Luz Magdalena Salas, 2023. "How does working‐time flexibility affect workers' productivity in a routine job? Evidence from a field experiment," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(1), pages 159-187, March.
    4. Boltz, Marie & Cockx, Bart & Diaz, Ana Maria & Salas, Luz Magdalena, 2020. "How does working-time flexibility affect workers’ productivity in a routine job?," ROA Research Memorandum 010, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    5. Nicola Gagliardi & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx, 2019. "Does firms’ position in global value chains matter for workers’ wages?. An overview with a gender perspective," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(4), pages 55-62.
    6. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2021. "Employer-provided training and productivity: Evidence from a panel of Japanese Firms," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    7. Maya Eden, 2021. "Time‐Inseparable Labor Productivity and the Workweek," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(3), pages 940-965, July.
    8. Kampelmann, Stephan & Mahy, Benoît & Rycx, François & Vermeylen, Guillaume, 2016. "Who Is Your Perfect Match? Educational Norms, Educational Mismatch and Firm Profitability," IZA Discussion Papers 10399, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Devicienti, Francesco & Grinza, Elena & Vannoni, Davide, 2015. "The Impact of Part-Time Work on Firm Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 9463, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Marta C.Lopes & Alessandro Tondini, 2022. "Firm-Level Effects of Reductions in Working Hours," FBK-IRVAPP Working Papers 2022-05, Research Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies (IRVAPP), Bruno Kessler Foundation.
    11. Eleonora Bartoloni & Andrea Marino & Maurizio Baussola & Davide Romaniello, 2023. "Urban Non-urban Agglomeration Divide: Is There a Gap in Productivity and Wages?," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(2), pages 789-827, July.
    12. Valentine Jacobs & Kevin Pineda-Hernández & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2023. "Does over-education raise productivity and wages equally? The moderating role of workers’ origin and immigrants’ background," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 698-724, November.
    13. Eden,Maya, 2016. "The week," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7598, The World Bank.
    14. Nicola Gagliardi & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx, 2021. "Upstreamness, Wages and Gender: Equal Benefits for All?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(1), pages 52-83, March.
    15. Collewet, Marion & Sauermann, Jan, 2017. "Working hours and productivity," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 96-106.
    16. Dongyeol Lee & Hyunjoon Lim, 2017. "Multiple Thresholds In The Nexus Between Working Hours And Productivity," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(4), pages 716-734, October.
    17. Rupietta, Kira, 2015. "How does Part-time Work Affect Firm Performance and Innovation Activity?," Working papers 2015/05, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    18. Masayuki MORIKAWA, 2017. "Are Part-time Employees Underpaid or Overpaid? Productivity–wage gaps in Japan," Discussion papers 17077, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    19. Cristian Alonso & Mariya Brussevich & Ms. Era Dabla-Norris & Yuko Kinoshita & Ms. Kalpana Kochhar, 2019. "Reducing and Redistributing Unpaid Work: Stronger Policies to Support Gender Equality," IMF Working Papers 2019/225, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Benoît Mahy & François Rycx & Guillaume Vermeylen & Mélanie Volral, 2018. "Productivity, wages and profits: Does firms’ position in the value chain matter?," Working Paper Research 358, National Bank of Belgium.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    child penalty; labour market; marital dissolution; event-study estimates; New Zealand;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17658. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.