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Navigating Motherhood: Endogenous Penalties and Career Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Sen Coskun

  • Husnu Dalgic

  • Yasemin Ozdemir

Abstract

Women strategically sort into "family-friendly" sectors characterized by lower returns to experience but also lower per-child penalties, before the birth of their first child. This pre-birth sorting represents an ex-ante career cost, a "sorting penalty" not captured by conventional measures. We build a heterogeneous agent model of career choice and fertility, incorporating both quality-quantity (Q-Q) and time-expenditure (T-E) trade-offs, to quantify this cost. Our central finding is that despite this sorting penalty being surprisingly small, it reveals an important mechanism: Women at the productivity margin are the switchers and use the Q-Q and T-E trade-offs as their primary, more powerful tools to navigate motherhood and career. Our findings highlight that frameworks excluding these trade-offs will overestimate the fertility responses and career costs associated with policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Sen Coskun & Husnu Dalgic & Yasemin Ozdemir, 2025. "Navigating Motherhood: Endogenous Penalties and Career Choice," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2025_722, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_722
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    File URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp722
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    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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