The Motherhood Training Penalty

Women experience slower wage growth than men over their lifetimes, a gap often attributed to the “motherhood wage penalty,” as childbearing reduces earnings. This paper links this penalty to differences in human capital using a pseudo-event study of first childbirth in Europe to document a “mother-hood training penalty.” Before parenthood, full-time male and female work-ers exhibit similar on-the-job training trends, but their trajectories diverge afterward. In the first 1–3 years of parenthood, women are 17%–22% less likely to train, compared to a 3%–8% decline for men. Additional evidence suggests this gap reflects employers’ lower willingness to finance training for mothers.