The Mommy Effect: Do Women Anticipate the Employment Effects of Motherhood?
Author: Ilyana Kuziemko
Author: Jessica Pan
Author: Jenny Shen
Author: Ebonya Washington
Abstract: After decades of convergence, the gender gap in employment outcomes has plateaued in many rich countries, leading to renewed interest in the labor-market effects of motherhood. In this paper, we contribute several new results and stylized facts to this literature. Using a simple event-study framework, we show substantial and persistent employment effects of motherhood in U.K. and U.S. data, larger, in fact, that those already documented in Scandinavia. We then provide several pieces of evidence that women do not anticipate these large post-motherhood employment changes. First, we show that women (but not men) adopt more conservative gender norms upon becoming parents (e.g., they are more likely to say that having a working mother hurts children), suggesting that their preferences or constraints change in an unexpected manner. Second, and more directly related to anticipation, working mothers (relative to working women without children) significantly over-estimate the probability they will remain in the labor force the following year, with nearly two-thirds of departures unanticipated in the previous year. Third, despite the stalling of female labor force entry since 1990, female high school seniors are increasingly and substantially over-estimating the likelihood they will be in the labor market at age 30, a sharp reversal from previous cohorts who substantially under-estimated their future labor supply. We provide evidence for a tentative explanation of these facts: the cost of motherhood has increased for the current cohort of mothers relative to what they would have predicted from earlier trends.
Date: 06/2018
URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w24740.pdf
Date Added: 11/3/2021, 6:54:09 AM
Reading Notes:
Objective: To estimate the effect of childbirth on employment and attitudes about gender norms and compare those with pre-child expectations and norms
Importance: Shows that the labor force penalties women experience after childbirth exist for the US and UK and are larger than those found in Nordic countries.
If women are not correctly anticipating the costs of motherhood, they may be making suboptimal choices on pre-birth investments or the timing of children.
The employment costs of bearing and raising children may be rising
Background: The growth in women's labor force participation and earnings have plateaued since the 90s, despite continued human capital investment
Data & Key Variables:
British Household Panel Survey - Started in 1991 with 5,500 households. Asks about gender equality norms.
681 women observed both before and after they have children
Also use U.S. data: NLSW68, NLSY79 & PSID
Methodology: Event-study before and after childbearing (or difference in difference for variables where a panel is unavailable)
Dependent variables: employment, gender norms, labor force participation & expectations
Results: There are substantial and persistent effects of motherhood on employment in the US and UK.
Women adopt more conservative gender norms after becoming mothers, and significantly over-estimate the probability they will remain in the labor force in the year after they have children
Key Table/Figure: