All of Scioteca
Communities & Collections By Issue Date Authors Titles Subjects Country / Region
Profiles
Our Authors
My Account
Login

Motherhood and the missing women in the labor market

Motherhood currently stands out as a key determinant of the gender gap in labor market outcomes. Studies identifying the effect of children have mostly focused in Europe and the US. These results may not be extrapolated to developing countries with different institutional settings and cultural norms. In this paper we estimate the impact of becoming a mother on various labor outcomes in Chile. Following an event-study methodology we show that motherhood implies a drastic reduction in earnings, explained by a drop in labor supply, both in the extensive and intensive margins. These changes persist even ten years after the first child is born. No child penalties are found for fathers, neither in the short nor in the long run. The results for mothers are driven by a decline in formal employment, leading to an increase in informality rates among them. Finally, we find that effects are stronger for less educated mothers, indicating that education is a buffer for this type of child penalty. Our results suggest that mothers find in the informal sector the flexibility to cope with both family and labor responsibilities, although at the cost of resigning contributory social protection and reducing on-the-job skills accumulation.

Abstract

Description

Subject

Economía | Educación | Investigación socioeconómica | Mujer | Niñez

País / Región

Chile
Estados Unidos
Europa

URI

https://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/1259

Date

2018-09-06

Cite from this publication

Collections

6.1 Documentos de trabajo en investigación socioeconómica

Endorsement

Review

Supplemented By

Referenced By

Thumbnail Image

Files

motherhood-and-the-missing-women-in-the-labor-market.pdf (1.15 MB)

Authors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

CAF

Related Items

Thumbnail Image
Gender Gaps in Labor Informality: The Motherhood Effect

We estimate the short- and long-run labor market impacts of parenthood in a developing country, Chile, based on an eventstudy approach around the birth of...

Thumbnail Image
Working mothers and intergenerational mobility: evidence from sibling schooling gaps in Venezuela

This paper documents the change in intergenerational mobility over the 35 year period between 1975 and 2010 in Venezuela and finds that equality of opportunities...

Thumbnail Image
Motherhood and flexible jobs: Evidence from Latin American countries

We study the causal effect of motherhood on labour market outcomes in Latin America by adopting an event study approach around the birth of the...

Thumbnail Image
The role of unwanted childbirths on female wages and education

This paper documents how unwanted childbirths relate to women’s education and wages. Unwanted childbirths, especially early in life, can affect women’s education and labor market...

Thumbnail Image
Intergenerational transmission of teen childbearing in Latin America

Using DHS data for six Latin American countries, we estimate the relation between a mother’s teenage childbearing status and that of her daughter. Restricting the...

Thumbnail Image
Motherhood, Pregnancy or Marriage Effects

The existence of large child penalties on women’s labor market outcomes has been documented for multiple countries and time periods. In this paper, we assess...