Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP14704
Authors: Camille Landais; Henrik Kleven; Jakob Egholt Sgaard
Abstract: This paper investigates if the impact of children on the labor market trajectories of women relative to men — child penalties — can be explained by the biological links between mother and child. We estimate child penalties in biological and adoptive families using event studies around the arrival of children and almost forty years of adoption data from Denmark. Long-run child penalties in earnings and its underlying determinants are virtually identical in biological and adoptive families. This implies that biology is not important for child-related gender gaps. Based on additional analyses, we argue that our results speak against the importance of specialization based on comparative advantage more broadly.
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Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| long-run child penalties in earnings are about 18% for biological families (J12) | long-run child penalties in earnings are about 18% for adoptive families (J12) |
| having children (J13) | female earnings (J31) |
| biological link between mother and child (J13) | gendered impacts of children (J13) |
| comparative advantage based on biological links (F12) | long-term child penalties (J13) |
| socioeconomic characteristics adjustment (R23) | comparability between biological and adoptive families (J12) |