The Cross-National Effects of Work-Family Policies on the Wage Penalty for Motherhood

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The Cross-National Effects of Work-Family Policies on the Wage Penalty for MotherhoodThe goal of this project is to understand why mothers incur wage penalties for children, why these penalties vary in size across countries, and to what degree specific work-family reconciliation policies can reduce or eliminate the wage penalty for motherhood. The impact of the wage penalty for mothers on lifetime earnings is staggering: it is estimated that college-educated women in the United States face a lifetime earnings penalty in excess of one million dollars for having children. This "mommy tax" varies significantly cross-nationally. Differences in national work-family policies may shape the size of these penalties. Throughout Europe, work-family reconciliation policies have expanded to combat the high price women pay for trying to balance work and family. Work-family policies include paid or unpaid parental and family leave, subsidized or state-provided child care, school scheduling, and flexible work-time policies. But how effective are these policies in reducing the economic penalties women face for raising children? While scholars and advocates have called for stronger work-family policy in the United States, we know little about how much individual policies (or combinations of policies) affect mothers' employment and wages. This project will investigate these questions by collecting data to create a new comprehensive cross-national dataset on family policy that the PIs will make freely available to other researchers. The future aim is to identify which work-family reconciliation policies are most effective for limiting wage penalties to childbearing for both single and married mothers. To this end, the PIs will use the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and Luxembourg Employment Study (LES) that provide the best cross-national data for comparing income across OECD countries. Methodologically, rather than simply showing an association between specific policy constellations and wage penalties to mothers, the PIs will use hierarchical linear modeling to directly test each policy's effects on wage penalties, while running a variety of sensitivity analyses to ensure that our results are robust. In addition, rather than using one index that combines a variety of family policy measures, the PIs look at particular work-family policies separately, as well as in combination with other policies. This study should result in clear-cut policy recommendations and impact policymaking regarding this important question.