Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/324301 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series No. 19/25
Publisher: 
Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) and Centre for Research & Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Berlin and London
Abstract: 
We show that the widespread approach to estimate the career costs of motherhood - so- called "child penalties" - is prone to produce biased results, as it pools first-time mothers of all ages without accounting for their differences in characteristics and outcomes. We propose a novel method building on the recent advances in the difference-in-differences literature to address this issue. Applied to German administrative data, our method yields 30 percent larger post-birth earnings losses than the conventional approach. We document meaningful effect heterogeneity by maternal age in both magnitude and interpretation, highlighting its key role in understanding the impact of motherhood.
Subjects: 
child penalty
maternal labor supply
heterogeneous treatment effects
event study
JEL: 
J13
J16
J31
C23
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.