The wage costs of motherhood

Abstract

"In this paper we analyze how motherhood affects women's wages. Using a dataset from Russia we adopt a matching technique to account for possible selection effects. Our findings indicate that mothers tend to suffer a moderate wage penalty. We also confine our analysis to sector-specific effects and find that the negative effect may primarily be attributed to mothers working in the public sector. The differences across sectors may be explained by considerable job flexibility and a system of promotion based on work experience which has been adopted in the public sector." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Nivorozhkina, L. & Nivorozhkin, A. (2008): The wage costs of motherhood. Which mothers are better off and why. (IAB-Discussion Paper 26/2008), Nürnberg, 25 p.