The family gap for young women in the United States and Britain: Can maternity leave make a difference?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Waldfogel, J
• 署名单位: Columbia University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/209897
• 发表日期: 1998
• 页码: 505-545
• 关键词: marital-status; earnings gap; labor-market; gender-gap; marriage; wages; pay; motherhood; benefits; workers

摘要

In the United States and Britain, there is a family gap between the wages of mothers and other women. Differential returns to marital and parental status explain 40%-50% of the gender gap. Another 30%-40% is explained by women's lower levels of work experience and lower returns to experience. Taking advantage of quasi experiments in job-protected maternity leave in the United States and Britain, this article finds that women who had leave coverage and returned to work after childbirth received a wage premium that offset the negative wage effects of children.