Change and Variation in U.S. Couples’ Earnings Equality Following Parenthood

In the context of broad increases in gender equality and growing socioeconomic disparities along multiple dimensions of family life, we examine changes in within‐family earnings equality following parenthood and the extent to which they have played out differently by education. Our analysis relies on links between rich surveys and administrative tax records that provide high‐quality earnings data for husbands and wives spanning two years before and up to 10 years following first births from the 1980s to the 2000s in the United States (Survey of Income and Program Participation Synthetic Beta files; N = 21,300 couples and 194,100 couple‐years). Accounting for time‐invariant couple characteristics and year and age fixed effects, we find that wives’ share of total couple earnings declines substantially after parenthood and remains lower over the observation window, irrespective of cohort and education. Cohort changes in within‐family earnings equality are modest and concentrated among the earliest cohort of parents, and data provide little evidence of differential change by education. These findings have implications for women's economic vulnerability, particularly in the United States where divorce remains common and public support for families is weak.