The Effect of Children on Women's Wages

Abstract

The author uses data from the 1968-1988 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women to investigate the lower wages of mothers. In pooled cross-sectional models, difference models, and fixed-effects models, the negative effect of children on women's wages is not entirely explained by differences in labor market experience. He considers two alternative explanations for the residual penalties associated with having children : unobserved pay-relevant differences between mothers and non-mothers, which fixed-effects models show do not account for the child penalty; and part-time employment, which does account for some of the child penalty. However even after controlling for part-time employment, a negative effect of children on women's pay remain