Women working for less
Subtitle: a longitudinal analysis of the family gap
By: Jane Waldfogel
Series: Welfare state programme discussion paper series -- WSP/93
Publisher: Suntory-Toyota Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines, London School of Economics
Published: 1993
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 61
Subjects: Women; Employment; Sex discrimination in employment; Equal pay for equal work
Description: This paper investigates wage differentials among women related to family status (the "family gap") as well as wage inequality between men and women (the "gender gap"). Using longitudinal and cross-sectional data (National Child Development Study (NCDS) and General Household Survey (GHS)), I ask three related questions. First, how large it the family gap? Second, what factors explain it? Third, what are the implications for public policy? Research using the cross-sectional data suggests that there is a family gap of 20-25% in the UK. The longitudinal dataset is used to test three alternative, but not mutually exclusive, hypotheses for this family gap. The results provide little support for the first hypothesis, that both motherhood and lower wages are due to unobserved heterogeneity. Second, there is some support for the first hypothesis, that both motherhood and lower wages are due to unobserved heterogeneity. Second, there is some support for a human capital explanation, as mothers' lower wages are in part explained by their lower levels of work experience. Third, some portion of the lower wages appears to be due to the direct effectss of family status, whether because of lower effort, discrimination, or limited opportunities. In addition to the wage penalty associated with having children, this paper finds a large positive effect of taking maternity leave as well as a large penalty to part-time work.

(Cont'd) The principal policy implication of this research is that extending rights to maternity leave, as current legislation proposes to do, should reduce the family gap for future working mothers. Other policy implications are that expanding child care availability and affordability would also lead to a reduction in the family gap, while extending opportunities for part-time working would not make much of a dent in the family gap unless the new part-time jobs are better paid that those offered at present.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p.52-56).