IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/intlab/v163y2024i2p173-197.html

The shifting motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium in China's gig economy: Impact of parental status on income changes

Author

Listed:
  • Qi ZHENG
  • Zitong QIU
  • Weiguo YANG

Abstract

The fatherhood premium and motherhood penalty are key concepts in the study of gender income gaps. Using an ordinary least squares model, influencing mechanism analysis and Oaxaca‐Blinder decomposition, we examine changes in Chinese gig workers’ income by gender, before and after parenthood. The results indicate that, in the Chinese gig economy, the motherhood penalty is vanishing, while the fatherhood premium has evolved into a fatherhood penalty owing to work pressure and the gender segregation of occupations in the gig economy, requiring men to balance their time and energy between work and childcare in a way that is not as prevalent in other sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Qi ZHENG & Zitong QIU & Weiguo YANG, 2024. "The shifting motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium in China's gig economy: Impact of parental status on income changes," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 163(2), pages 173-197, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:intlab:v:163:y:2024:i:2:p:173-197
    DOI: 10.1111/ilr.12407
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12407
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ilr.12407?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Costas Meghir & Barbara Sianesi, 1999. "Human capital investment: the returns from education and training to the individual, the firm and the economy," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, March.
    2. Kasey Buckles, 2008. "Understanding the Returns to Delayed Childbearing for Working Women," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 403-407, May.
    3. Jeremy Staff & Jeylan Mortimer, 2012. "Explaining the Motherhood Wage Penalty During the Early Occupational Career," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(1), pages 1-21, February.
    4. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    5. Rainald Borck, 2014. "Adieu Rabenmutter—culture, fertility, female labour supply, the gender wage gap and childcare," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(3), pages 739-765, July.
    6. Anna Baranowska & Anna Matysiak, 2011. "Does parenthood increase happiness? Evidence for Poland," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 9(1), pages 307-325.
    7. Petrongolo, Barbara & Ronchi, Maddalena, 2020. "Gender gaps and the structure of local labor markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    8. Mary C. Noonan & Mary E. Corcoran, 2004. "The Mommy Track and Partnership: Temporary Delay or Dead End?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 596(1), pages 130-150, November.
    9. Katharine G. Abraham & John C. Haltiwanger & Kristin Sandusky & James R. Spletzer, 2017. "Measuring the Gig Economy: Current Knowledge and Open Issues," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century, pages 257-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    11. Cody Cook & Rebecca Diamond & Jonathan V Hall & John A List & Paul Oyer, 2021. "The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(5), pages 2210-2238.
    12. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    13. Arnstein Aassve & Alice Goisis & Maria Sironi, 2012. "Happiness and Childbearing Across Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 108(1), pages 65-86, August.
    14. Benjamin Bruns, 2019. "Changes in Workplace Heterogeneity and How They Widen the Gender Wage Gap," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 74-113, April.
    15. Gerald Friedman, 2014. "Workers without employers: shadow corporations and the rise of the gig economy," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 2(2), pages 171-188, April.
    16. Mary C. Noonan & Mary E. Corcoran, 2004. "The Mommy Track and Partnership: Temporary Delay or Dead End," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 596(1), pages 255-257, November.
    17. Charlotta Magnusson & Magnus Nermo, 2017. "Gender, Parenthood and Wage Differences: The Importance of Time-Consuming Job Characteristics," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 797-816, March.
    18. Randall K. Filer, 1985. "Male-Female Wage Differences: The Importance of Compensating Differentials," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 38(3), pages 426-437, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liping Liu & Yu Wang & Ting Xiao & Chunyu Zhang, 2026. "Platform gig work conditions and workers’ perceptions of decent work: a configurational and necessity perspective," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Guofeng Guan & Yixin Gao & Wenguang Yu & Yujuan Huang, 2025. "Motherhood Penalty and Fatherhood Premium: Insights From Empirical Research in China," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(4), pages 21582440251, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anthony Strittmatter & Conny Wunsch, 2025. "Labor market sorting and the gender pay gap revisited," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(3), pages 1-41, September.
    2. Derek T. Tharp & Elizabeth J. Parks-Stamm & Meghaan Lurtz & Michael Kitces, 2022. "Exploring Gender Differences in Marital and Parental Income Premiums Among Financial Advisors," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 15-35, March.
    3. Zheng Mu & Yu Xie, 2016. "'Motherhood penalty' and 'fatherhood premium'? Fertility effects on parents in China," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 35(47), pages 1373-1410.
    4. Töpfer, Marina, 2017. "Detailed RIF decomposition with selection: The gender pay gap in Italy," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 26-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    5. Michaela Fuchs & Anja Rossen & Antje Weyh & Gabriele Wydra‐Somaggio, 2021. "Where do women earn more than men? Explaining regional differences in the gender pay gap," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(5), pages 1065-1086, November.
    6. Xinxin Ma & Peng Zhan, 2024. "Trade unions and the gender wage gap: evidence from China," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 2369430-236, December.
    7. Michal Brzezinski, 2019. "Diagnosing Unhappiness Dynamics: Evidence from Poland and Russia," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(7), pages 2291-2327, October.
    8. Borghorst, Malte & Mulalic, Ismir & van Ommeren, Jos, 2024. "Commuting, gender and children," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    9. Sergio Scicchitano & Marco Biagetti & Antonio Chirumbolo, 2020. "More insecure and less paid? The effect of perceived job insecurity on wage distribution," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(18), pages 1998-2013, April.
    10. Peter T. Calcagno & Meg M. Montgomery, 2021. "The gender wage gap: an analysis of US congressional staff members," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 183-201, July.
    11. Heather Antecol & Michael D. Steinberger, 2013. "Labor Supply Differences Between Married Heterosexual Women And Partnered Lesbians: A Semi-Parametric Decomposition Approach," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 783-805, January.
    12. Töpfer, Marina, 2017. "Detailed RIF Decomposition with Selection - The Gender Pay Gap in Italy," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168422, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Bonaccolto-Töpfer, Marina & Briel, Stephanie, 2022. "The gender pay gap revisited: Does machine learning offer new insights?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Andrea Cutillo & Marco Centra, 2017. "Gender-Based Occupational Choices and Family Responsibilities: The Gender Wage Gap in Italy," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 1-31, October.
    15. Azmat, Ghazala & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2014. "Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-40.
    16. Paweenawat, Sasiwimon Warunsiri & Liao, Lusi, 2022. "Parenthood penalty and gender wage gap: Recent evidence from Thailand," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Alessandra Casarico & Salvatore Lattanzio, 2023. "Behind the child penalty: understanding what contributes to the labour market costs of motherhood," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1489-1511, July.
    18. Laia Castany, 2010. "The role of size in firms' training: evidence from Spain," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(5), pages 563-584, August.
    19. Gashi Ardiana & Adnett Nick, 2020. "Are Women Really Paid More than Men in Kosovo? Unpicking the Evidence," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Paradigm, vol. 15(2), pages 83-95, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:intlab:v:163:y:2024:i:2:p:173-197. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ilounch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.