The child penalty atlas

Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen, Landais, Camille ORCID: 0000-0002-9534-680X and Leite Mariante, Gabriel (2025) The child penalty atlas. Review of Economic Studies. ISSN 0034-6527

Text (rdae104) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (5MB)

• Author

Abstract

This paper builds a world atlas of child penalties in employment based on microdata from 134 countries. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using panel data for a subset of countries. Most countries display clear and sizable child penalties: men and women follow parallel trends before parenthood, but diverge sharply and persistently after parenthood. While this pattern is pervasive, there is enormous variation in the magnitude of the effects across different regions of the world. The fraction of gender inequality explained by child penalties varies systematically with economic development and proxies for structural transformation. At low levels of development, child penalties represent a minuscule fraction of gender inequality. But as economies develop—incomes rise and the labour market transitions from subsistence agriculture to salaried work in industry and services—child penalties take over as the dominant driver of gender inequality. The relationship between child penalties and development is validated using historical data from current high-income countries, back to the 1700s for some countries. Finally, because parenthood is often tied to marriage, we also investigate the existence of marriage penalties in female employment. In general, women experience both marriage and child penalties, but their relative importance depends on the level of development. The development process is associated with a substitution from marriage penalties to child penalties, with the former gradually converging to zero.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://academic.oup.com/restud
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Economics STICERD
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
JEL classification:	J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Time Allocation, Work Behavior, and Employment Determination and Creation; Human Capital; Retirement > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
Date Deposited:	30 May 2024 08:39
Last Modified:	13 Mar 2025 08:42
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/123685

Actions (login required)

View Item