Title: Add oil and water, then stir
Description: This study examines some of the critical issues arising from the incompatibility of work and family obligations. I investigate three questions in two broad areas: the motherhood wage penalty and the value parents assign to family-friendly workplace practices. The motherhood wage penalty, the unexplained difference in earnings between mothers and non-mothers, illustrates the economic consequences of managing work and family responsibilities. Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data from 1981 to 2001, I analyze if mothers incur a cumulative penalty over the life course. I find that higher educated mothers bear the greatest cumulative penalty, whereas lower educated mothers are not penalized at all. Higher educated mothers may experience significant job demands which increase over time, resulting in a growing commitment conflict between work and family. In contrast, lower educated mothers may not be penalized because they work in a segment of the labor market where there is little opportunity for wage growth. I also examine if childrearing causes the motherhood wage penalty.

I use the inverse-probability-of-treatment-weighting (IPTW) method to eliminate potential endogeneity that may be produced when using standard regression techniques such as OLS. My results show that the IPTW method does not substantively change the OLS estimates of the effect of children on wages, confirming that childrearing indeed causes the wage penalty. Finally, I explore the strategies parents may use to mitigate the "work-family" tension. I use 2002 and 2006 General Social Survey (GSS) data to examine if the use of flexible workplace benefits is positively associated with parental perceptions of pay fairness. I find that some mothers view these policies as subjective rewards, highly valuable job characteristics which bolster their belief that they are being compensated fairly. Among mothers, the relationship also varies by education--lower educated ones value flexible scheduling benefits more than higher educated mothers perhaps due to differences in expectations. Fathers do not seem to value flexible workplace policies to the same extent as mothers.