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The Cash Opportunity Costs of Childbearing: An Approach To Estimation Using British Data
Abstract
The opportunity costs of rearing British children in terms of cash earnings foregone by their mother are estimated for a typical family. Data from the Women and Employment Survey (1980) provide estimates for hourly pay as a function of work experience and current hours of work. They also make possible the generation of participation and hours profiles for representative women with different numbers of children, which, together with the earnings function are used to simulate lifetime income. Earnings foregone as a result of bearing and rearing two children are roughly equally composed of three effects, on participation, hours and pay. They exceed direct costs, and do not rise proportionally with family size. They are sensitive to the spacing of births but not, undiscounted, to the timing of the first one. The method and results contrast markedly with those of a similarly motivated study of US women, by Calhoun and Espenshade. It is argued that the non-linearity of the earnings function and state dependence in British labour force transitions would violate the assumptions which permitted the US exercise to be based on a multi-state labour force life-table.
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“However, an opposing force ostensibly influences women: motherhood obligations lead to limitations in career opportunities and losses in work earnings, referred to as the opportunity costs of motherhood (Joshi 1990).”
From Education, Gender, and Cohort Fertility in the Nordic Countries (2019) · cites this paper as Joshi 1990
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Items 101–128 of 128
Employment Retention and Re-Entry Among Older Women: Do Health and Caring Roles Matter?Preprint
Austen, S., & Ong, R. (2009) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.1487331 · Cited by 2
“Many empirical studies (see, for example, Joshi, 1990, Baxter, 2005) have explored the consequences of the unpaid care roles associated with motherhood for women’s employment and earnings chances4.”
BackgroundIl costo dei figli: una stima svincolata dal benessere
Polin, V. (2004) · doi:10.1400/23815 · Cited by 2
The Road to Parenthood: Income and First Births in Sweden
Silva, E. G. (2016) · Finnish Yearbook of Population Research · doi:10.23979/fypr.48412 · Cited by 2
“There is near consensus in previous research showing that women carry the main burden of the opportunity costs of children (Joshi 1990; Budig and England 2001; Breusch and Gray 2004).”
ResultWomen, Work and Exploitation: A Binary Perspective
Husain, Z., & Dutta, M. (2013) · SpringerBriefs in sociology · doi:10.1007/978-81-322-1593-6_2 · Cited by 1
“5 Care providers experience a significant reduction in lifetime earnings (Joshi 1990, 1998; Waldfogel 1997).”
BackgroundWORLDS OF LEGITIMATE WELFARE ARRANGEMENTS: A REALISTIC UTOPIA ON PENSIONS
Frericks, P., & Майер, Р. (2011) · doi:10.1142/9789814355063_0005 · Cited by 1
Kimmel, J. (2008) · doi:10.17848/9781435667426.intro · Cited by 1
An “Endogenous Dummy Variable” Estimator of Women’s Opportunity Costs of Children in Italy
Pino, A. D., & Mucciardi, M. (2004) · Contributions to statistics · doi:10.1007/978-3-7908-2681-4_4 · Cited by 1
Folbre, N. R. (2021) · Revista Internacional del Trabajo · doi:10.1111/ilrs.12215 · Cited by 1
Folbre, N. R. (2021) · Revue internationale du Travail · doi:10.1111/ilrf.12211 · Cited by 1
Paci, P. (1999) · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · Cited by 1
Raising Children: Private Expenditure and Foregone Earnings*
Buchegger, R., & Zweimüller, J. (1992) · Labour · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00059.x · Cited by 1
Sex composition of children as a determinant of parity progression
Gray, E., & Evans, A. (2004) · ANU Open Research (Australian National University) · Cited by 1
Niepłatna praca matek z perspektywy ekonomicznej. Konsekwencje dla polityki państwa
Michoń, P. (2006) · Cited by 1
Michoń, P. (2005) · Zeszyty Studiów Doktoranckich / Akademia Ekonomiczna w Poznaniu. Wydział Ekonomii
Joshi, H. E. (2001) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b0-08-043076-7/03979-6
Self-citationLife‐time income of men and women — the case in Denmark
Bonke, J. (1992) · Journal Of Consumer Studies and Home Economics · doi:10.1111/j.1470-6431.1992.tb00520.x
Who Pays for Raising the Next Generation of Americans --Women, Men, or the State? ∗
England, P., & Folbre, N. R. (2002) · 歐美研究
The Cost of Children: Differences between the Genders *Preprint
Nordström, J. (2009) · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics
The proportion of expenditure on children to family’s income in Saudi Arabia
Al-Banawi, N. I. M. (2014) · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
van de Ven, J. (2009) · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics
Review of periodical literature
(1992) · The Economic History Review · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.1992.tb01297.x
Hammer, J. A. (2015) · The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty · doi:10.4135/9781483345727.n492
(2002) · Policy Press eBooks · doi:10.51952/9781847425416.bm001
Transforming Gendered Labor Markets to End Discrimination
Elson, D. (2022) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-981-33-4016-9_4-1
Ni, S. (2023) · Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks · doi:10.1057/978-1-349-96093-4_1
Greulich, A., & Spitzer, S. (2025) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_463-1
Metadata
- Authors
- Joshi, H.
- Affiliations
- Birkbeck, University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Joshi, Heather
- ORCID
- Joshi, Heather
- Venue
- Population Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 1990-03
- Volume
- 44
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 41-60
- ISSN
- 0032-4728 (ISSN-L)
- 1477-4747
- OpenAlex
- W2030205967
- Cited by
- 128
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 11.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Population Studies (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Keywords
- parenting, women's labour force participation, birth spacing, family size, lifetime income, earnings functions, state dependence, labor force transitions, British women
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