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The Child Penalty - What about Job Amenities?

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  • Christina Felfe

Abstract

Women with children tend to earn lower hourly wages than women without children - a shortfall known as the ‘child penalty’. While many studies provide evidence for this empirical fact and explore several hypotheses about its causes, the impact of motherhood on job dimensions other than wages has scarcely been investigated. In order to assess changes in women’s jobs around the time of first childbirth, I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and apply an event study analysis. The results show not only a significant change in women's hourly wages (-19%) once becoming mothers, but also in other non-pecuniary job characteristics, such as working hours (-15 hours), night work (-6%), work in the evening hours (-8%), stress (-10%), physical requirements (4%), hazards (-3%) and distance to the workplace (-1km). In order to assess the hypothesis that mothers might substitute wages for non-wage benefits, I additionally estimate a hedonic wage regression. The results suggest that mothers trade pecuniary for non-pecuniary job characteristics and hence, that part of the child penalty (8.2%) might be interpreted as a compensating wage differential.

Suggested Citation

  • Christina Felfe, 2008. "The Child Penalty - What about Job Amenities?," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2008 2008-22, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:dp2008:2008-22
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Shelley Phipps & Peter Burton & Lynn Lethbridge, 2001. "In and out of the labour market: long‐term income consequences of child‐related interruptions to women's paid work," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(2), pages 411-429, May.
    2. Beblo, Miriam & Wolf, Elke, 2000. "How much does a year off cost? Estimating the wage effects of employment breaks and part-time periods," ZEW Discussion Papers 00-69, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Mette Ejrnæs & Astrid Kunze, 2002. "Wage dips and drops around the first birth," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 C2-4, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    4. Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Kimmel, Jean, 2008. "New Evidence on the Motherhood Wage Gap," IZA Discussion Papers 3662, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Miriam Beblo & Elke Wolf, 2002. "How much does a year off cost? Estimating the wage effects of employment breaks and part-time periods," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 45(2), pages 191-217.
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    Cited by:

    1. Christina Felfe, 2012. "The Willingness to Pay for Job Amenities: Evidence from Mothers' Return to Work," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(2), pages 427-454, April.
    2. Felfe, Christina, 2012. "The motherhood wage gap: What about job amenities?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 59-67.
    3. Felfe, Christina & Lalive, Rafael, 2014. "Does Early Child Care Help or Hurt Children's Development?," IZA Discussion Papers 8484, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Penalty; Compensating Wage Differentials; Sample Selection in Panel Data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

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