Establishment-level wage effects of entering motherhood

Abstract

"We analyse the wage effects following employment breaks of women who enter motherhood using a novel matching approach where mothers' wages upon return to work are compared to those of their female colleagues within the same establishment. Using an administrative German data set, we apply a fixed-effects propensity score matching based on information two years before birth of the first child. Our results yield new insights into the nature of the wage penalty associated with motherhood: when matching with establishment-specific effects we find that first births reduce women's wages by 19 %, whereas ignoring the identifier and matching across all establishments would yield a wage cut of 26 %. We therefore conclude that selection into establishments is an important explanatory factor for the family pay gap." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Beblo, M., Bender, S. & Wolf, E. (2009): Establishment-level wage effects of entering motherhood. In: Oxford economic papers, Vol. 61, No. S1, p. i11-i34. DOI:10.1093/oep/gpn040