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Title: Working Mothers Then and Now: A Cross-Cohort Analysis of the Effects of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Waldfogel, Jane |
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Working Mothers Then and Now: A Cross-Cohort Analysis of the Effects of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay Presented: New Orleans, LA, Population Association of America, May 1996. Also: Presented: Ithaca, NY, Conference on "Gender and Family Issues in the Workplace", Cornell University, April 1995 Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women Publisher: Population Association of America Keyword(s): Family Background and Culture; Income; Labor Market Demographics; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Motherhood; Mothers; Wages, Women; Wages, Young Women Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. This paper uses two young cohorts from the NLS-YW and NLSY to investigate the importance of family status as a component of the gender gap and the potential impact of job protected maternity leave as a remedy for the pay penalties associated with motherhood. The results suggest that despite the narrowing of the gender gap over the 1980s, family status continues to be quite important in explaining the lower pay of working mothers. The results also suggest that maternity leave policies can have an important effect on women's pay. In both cohorts, employment continuity over the period of childbirth is associated with higher pay, because women who maintain employment continuity over childbirth have higher wages to start but also because returning to the prior employer after childbirth leads to gains in work experience and job tenure. In the NLSY, women who were covered by a formal maternity leave policy and returned to their original employers after their most recent birth have higher current pay, all else equal, than other working mothers. Although the higher pay of these women is explained in part by higher pre-birth wages, there are also positive returns to having maternity leave coverage and returning to a pre-birth employer. Coverage even if not used to maintain employment continuity is associated with higher pay, perhaps reflecting covered women's superior position in the labor market relative to women without coverage. |
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Bibliography Citation
Waldfogel, Jane. "Working Mothers Then and Now: A Cross-Cohort Analysis of the Effects of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay." Presented: New Orleans, LA, Population Association of America, May 1996. |