IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tor/tecipa/ecpap-96-05.html

Marriage, Motherhood and Wages: Recent Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Petra Bradler
  • Chun Yee Wong

Abstract

Using data from the 1982 National Longitudinal Survey for Young Women (NLSYW) we replicate Korenman and Neumark's (K&N) (1992) study "Marriage, Motherhood and Wages" and obtain similar OLS estimates. Applying IV estimation to account for the endogeneity of experience and tenure, K&N find evidence in favor of the endogeneity of and obtain more negative coefficients for the children coefficients. In the IV estimation we obtain experience and tenure coefficients which are not significantly different from the OLS estimates, hence rejecting the endogeneity. As in K&N's study, our first difference specification exhibits signs of heterogeneity bias. Sample selectivity bias is marginally evident in K&N's paper, whereas we do not find evidence in favor of it. We furthermore examine the development of wage differentials over time by looking at more recent NLSYW surveys (1987 and 1991). We find that as women age, experience, tenure and education become better predictors for wage differentials among women with different marital and fertility status.

Suggested Citation

  • Petra Bradler & Chun Yee Wong, 1996. "Marriage, Motherhood and Wages: Recent Evidence," Working Papers ecpap-96-05, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:ecpap-96-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/UT-ECIPA-ECPAP-96-05.ps
    File Function: MainText
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/UT-ECIPA-ECPAP-96-05.pdf
    File Function: MainText
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sanders Korenman & David Neumark, 1992. "Marriage, Motherhood, and Wages," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(2), pages 233-255.
    2. Moon-Kak Kim & Solomon W. Polachek, 1994. "Panel Estimates of Male-Female Earnings Functions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(2), pages 406-428.
    3. Blackburn, McKinley L & Neumark, David, 1993. "Omitted-Ability Bias and the Increase in the Return to Schooling," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(3), pages 521-544, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Rose, Heather, 2006. "Do gains in test scores explain labor market outcomes?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 430-446, August.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3143-3259 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Heather Antecol & Kelly Bedard, 2004. "The Racial Wage Gap: The Importance of Labor Force Attachment Differences across Black, Mexican, and White Men," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    4. Sami Napari, 2008. "The Early‐career Gender Wage Gap among University Graduates in the Finnish Private Sector," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(4), pages 697-733, December.
    5. Oskar Skans & Linus Liljeberg, 2014. "The wage effects of subsidized career breaks," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 593-617, September.
    6. Jamie H. Douglas & Michael D. Steinberger, 2015. "The Sexual Orientation Wage Gap for Racial Minorities," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 59-108, January.
    7. Constantine, J.M., 1994. "Measuring the Effect of Attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities on Future Wages of Black Students," Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education DP-30, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    8. Claussen, Jörg & Czibor, Eszter & van Praag, Mirjam C., 2015. "Women Do Not Play Their Aces: The Consequences of Shying Away," IZA Discussion Papers 9612, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Andres Erosa & Luisa Fuster & Diego Restuccia, 2002. "Fertility Decisions and Gender Differences in Labor Turnover, Employment, and Wages," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(4), pages 856-891, October.
    10. Zorlu, Aslan, 2011. "Ethnic Disparities in the Graduate Labour Market," IZA Discussion Papers 6159, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Eric A. Hanushek & Victor Lavy & Kohtaro Hitomi, 2008. "Do Students Care about School Quality? Determinants of Dropout Behavior in Developing Countries," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 69-105.
    12. Tanthaka Vivatsurakit & Jessica Vechbanyongratana, 2020. "Returns to education among the informally employed in Thailand," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 34(1), pages 26-43, May.
    13. Galindo-Rueda, Fernando & Vignoles, Anna, 2002. "Class Ridden or Meritocratic? An Economic Analysis of Recent Changes in Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 677, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. Astrid Kunze, 2008. "Gender wage gap studies: consistency and decomposition," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 63-76, August.
    15. Musayir, Arlan & Arabsheibani, Reza, 2025. "Motherhood and Informality: Empirical Evidence from Russia," IZA Discussion Papers 17916, IZA Network @ LISER.
    16. Daniel J. Henderson & Anne-Charlotte Souto & Le Wang, 2020. "Higher-Order Risk–Returns to Education," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-25, October.
    17. Molina, José Alberto & Montuenga, Víctor M., 2008. "The Motherhood Wage Penalty in a Mediterranean Country: The Case of Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 3574, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Antecol, Heather & Bedard, Kelly, 2002. "The Racial Wage Gap: The Importance of Labor Force Attachment Differences," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt7cb6q4m9, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    19. 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.
    20. Eliane Badaoui & Eleonora Matteazzi & Vincenzo Prete, 2024. "The role of non‐base compensation in explaining the motherhood wage gap: Evidence from Italy," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 873-894, November.
    21. Heineck, Guido & Anger, Silke, 2010. "The returns to cognitive abilities and personality traits in Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 535-546, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    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:tor:tecipa:ecpap-96-05. 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: RePEc Maintainer (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.