Labor market penalty for single mothers

Single mothers, a growing global demographic, face unique labor market challenges, yet their outcomes remain understudied. On the one hand, breaking free from the marriage penalty in traditional patriarchal societies can facilitate the labor force participation of single mothers. On the other hand, they face the same constraints with respect to childcare as married mothers. While aggregate data suggest that single mothers’ labor market participation rates are higher than those of unmarried women, we argue that this realized labor market equilibrium masks potential demand-side discrimination. To study this, we conduct a correspondence study experiment that involves applying for real jobs using fictitious resumes and allows us to separately identify marriage penalties, motherhood penalties, and an additional penalty associated with single motherhood. We show that equally qualified single mothers are much less likely to receive interview callbacks than unmarried women without children, married women, and married mothers. For every interview callback, a single mother has to apply to about 30 jobs, whereas an unmarried woman receives more than two callbacks for as many job applications. This callback probability is higher in low-DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) than in high-DEI firms, suggesting diversity washing. A key mechanism, the relocation cost channel, where callback differentials are more pronounced for jobs farther from applicants’ home locations, implies statistical discrimination, which is further corroborated by a vignette study.