Working Paper: NBER ID: w16582
Authors: Elizabeth Ty Wilde; Lily Batchelder; David T. Ellwood
Abstract: This paper explores how the wage and career consequences of motherhood differ by skill and timing. Past work has often found smaller or even negligible effects from childbearing for high-skill women, but we find the opposite. Wage trajectories diverge sharply for high scoring women after, but not before, they have children, while there is little change for low-skill women. It appears that the lifetime costs of childbearing, especially early childbearing, are particularly high for skilled women. These differential costs of childbearing may account for the far greater tendency of high-skill women to delay or avoid childbearing altogether.
Keywords: childbearing; wages; skill levels; motherhood; labor market
JEL Codes: J01; J11; J13; J16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Childbearing (J13) | Wage trajectories of high-skill women (J31) |
| Childbearing (J13) | Wage trajectories of low-skill women (J31) |
| Early childbearing (J13) | Lifetime earnings reduction for high-skill women (J17) |
| Early childbearing (J13) | Lifetime earnings reduction for low-skill women (J79) |
| Timing of childbearing (J13) | Costs associated with childbearing for high-skill women (J39) |