This study identifies a new mechanism to account for the persistent gender differences in earnings after childbirth. Aside from women's voluntary wage cuts in pursuit of family-friendly job amenities, we claim that adverse labor market conditions at the time of childbearing widen the gender gap...

Children cause large earnings drops for mothers but not fathers, a stylized fact known as the "child penalty" that explains a substantial portion of remaining gender income gaps. Can policy reduce the child penalty? We first document how changes in the child penalty over a long time horizon in...

Motherhood continues to pose significant challenges to women's careers, and a correct assessment of its effects is crucial for understanding the persistent gender inequality in the labor market. We show that the prevalent approach to estimate post-birth earnings losses - so called "child...

Using a semiparametric event study approach with a control group, we estimate the effect of motherhood on labor market outcomes in Germany, the child penalty. We further investigate how the 2007 parental benefits reform changed the child penalty while accounting for fertility effects. A large...

Using a semiparametric event study approach with a control group, we estimate the effect of motherhood on labor market outcomes in Germany, the child penalty. We further investigate how the 2007 parental benefits reform changed the child penalty while accounting for fertility effects. A large...

Women-friendly policies may have perverse effects on the wages of employed women and mothers in particular. Yet few have addressed the causal impact of such policies and the mechanisms they might trigger at the individual level to produce such wage responses. We assess if and how two decades of...

The ultra-loose monetary policy of recent years has raised concerns that the low interest rate environment may overly benefit households with specific demographic and financial characteristics. In this context, monetary policy can be a potential driver of gender wealth inequality, since women...

The gender income gap is large and well documented for many countries. Recent research shows that it is mainly driven by differences in working patterns between men and women, but also by wage differences. The tax-benefit system cushions the gender income gap by redistributing between men and...

We explore whether COVID-19 disproportionately affected women in the labor market using CPS data through the end of 2020. We find that male-female gaps in the employment-to-population ratio and hours worked for women with school-age children have widened but not for those with younger children....

Does providing nontransferable months of parental leave earmarked to fathers, as mandated by the European Union to its member countries since 2019, increase their participation? To answer that question, the authors investigate the consequences of a 2015 French reform that earmarked up to 12...