Research project Parenthood penalties and premiums on labor market outcomes: Who is affected and why?

We know that men earn more and have higher chances of reaching managerial positions in the labor market than women. These differences are triggered or accentuated at parenthood. Yet we lack knowledge about which women and men are affected, how they are affected, and why they are affected. Are parenthood effects a zero-sum game such that if one parent gains the other loses or can we identify couples where both gain or both lose? How do within-couple combinations of labor supply, job prestige, education, wage, and household work translate into career effects of parenthood?

We scrutinize whether premiums/penalties for parenthood vary 1) by wage/income, job prestige and education for each gender and over time, 2) by characteristics of the partner, and 3) according to the division of both paid and unpaid work within couples. We use longitudinal survey and population register data sets going back as far as the late 1960s, enabling us to describe effects of parenthood on wages and authority historically as well as more recently. We will be able to identify under which circumstances women and men are affected career-wise by family formation and under which circumstances they are not, making the project highly relevant for our knowledge about potential mechanisms behind gender gaps in authority and wage in the labor market.