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

工作-家庭政策对母性工资惩罚的跨国影响这个项目的目标是了解为什么母亲会因为孩子而受到工资惩罚，为什么这些惩罚在不同国家的大小不同，以及具体的工作-家庭协调政策在多大程度上可以减少或消除母性的工资惩罚。母亲的工资惩罚对终生收入的影响是惊人的：据估计，美国受过大学教育的妇女因生育孩子而面临超过100万美元的终身收入惩罚。这种“妈妈税”在不同国家差别很大。各国工作家庭政策的差异可能会影响这些惩罚的力度。在整个欧洲，工作与家庭的协调政策已经扩大，以对抗女性为平衡工作和家庭而付出的高昂代价。工作家庭政策包括带薪或无薪的育儿和家庭假，补贴或国家提供的儿童保育，学校安排和灵活的工作时间政策。但这些政策在减少女性因抚养孩子而面临的经济惩罚方面效果如何？虽然学者和倡导者呼吁在美国制定更强有力的工作-家庭政策，但我们对个别政策（或政策组合）对母亲的就业和工资有多大影响知之甚少。该项目将通过收集数据来调查这些问题，以创建一个关于家庭政策的新的综合跨国数据集，pi将向其他研究人员免费提供该数据集。未来的目标是确定哪些工作-家庭协调政策最有效地限制对单身和已婚母亲生育的工资处罚。为此，pi将使用卢森堡收入研究（LIS）和卢森堡就业研究（LES），它们为比较经合组织国家的收入提供了最佳的跨国数据。在方法上，pi将使用分层线性模型直接测试每项政策对工资处罚的影响，而不是简单地显示特定政策组合与母亲工资处罚之间的关联，同时运行各种敏感性分析以确保我们的结果是稳健的。此外，指数不是使用一个综合了各种家庭政策措施的指数，而是单独考察特定的工作家庭政策，也可以与其他政策结合起来考察。这项研究应该产生明确的政策建议，并影响有关这一重要问题的政策制定。

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.