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Cited by 588Gender, Labor, and Family DynamicsLabor market dynamics and wage inequalityLabour Market and Migration

Motherhood, labor force behavior, and women’s careers: An empirical assessment of the wage penalty for motherhood in britain, germany, and the united states

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Gangl, Markus, Ziefle, Andrea·2009·Demography
DOI 10.1353/dem.0.0056PMC PMC2831275
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Abstract

Using harmonized longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we trace career prospects after motherhood for five cohorts of American, British, and West German women around the 1960s. We establish wage penalties for motherhood between 9% and 18% per child, with wage losses among American and British mothers being lower than those experienced by mothers in Germany. Labor market mechanisms generating the observed wage penalty for motherhood differ markedly across countries, however. For British and American women, work interruptions and subsequent mobility into mother-friendly jobs fully account for mothers’ wage losses. In contrast, respective penalties are considerably smaller in Germany, yet we observe a substantial residual wage penalty that is unaccounted for by mothers’ observable labor market behavior. We interpret this finding as indicating a comparatively more pronounced role for statistical discrimination against mothers in the German labor market.

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Authors
Gangl, M., & Ziefle, A.
Affiliations
University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
ORCID
Gangl, Markus
Venue
Demography
Publisher
Duke University Press
Published
2009-05-01
Volume
46
Issue
2
Pages
341-369
ISSN
  • 0070-3370 (ISSN-L)
  • 1533-7790
DOI
10.1353/dem.0.0056
PMC
PMC2831275
OpenAlex
W2008261228
Cited by
588
References
3
Citations by year
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FWCI
32.73
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Demography (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • GRO (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Labour Market and Migration
Keywords
motherhood penalty, women's careers, labor force participation, work interruptions, statistical discrimination, gender pay gap, cross-national comparison, Great Britain, Germany, United States
MeSH terms
Economics, Employment, Ethnicity, Female, Germany, United Kingdom, Humans, Salaries and Fringe Benefits, Socioeconomic Factors, United States

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