The Effect of Children on Women's Wages

• Published in: American sociological review Vol. 62; no. 2; pp. 209 - 217
• Main Author: Waldfogel, Jane
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Sociological Association 01-04-1997
• Subjects: Children; Divorce; Earnings; Employed Women; Employment; Employment Experience; Factors; Families & family life; Fines & penalties; Human capital; Hypotheses; Income; Income Inequality; Labor Force Participation; Labor market; Labor markets; Longitudinal studies; Married status; Motherhood; Mothers; Part Time Employment; Salary Wage Differentials; Social research; Sociology; Sociology of the family. Age groups; Stratification Processes: Women, Work, and Wages; U.S.A; United States; USA; Variable coefficients; Wage differential; Wages; Wages & salaries; Woman social status. Women's emancipation; Women; Women's employment; Working Mothers; Working Women; United States Of America; United Kingdom > UK; England; United States > US; Salary; Cross-section analysis; Model; Woman; Child; Part Time; Social impact
• ISSN: 0003-1224; 1939-8271
• DOI: 10.2307/2657300

I use data from the 1968-1988 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women to investigate the lower wages of mothers. In pooled cross-sectional models, difference models, and fixed-effects models, the negative effect of children on women's wages is not entirely explained by differences in labor market experience. I consider two alternative explanations for the residual penalties associated with having children: unobserved pay-relevant differences between mothers and non-mothers, which fixed-effects models show do not account for the child penalty; and part-time employment, which does account for some of the child penalty. However, even after controlling for part-time employment, a negative effect of children on women's pay remains.