Arbeitspapier
Can the child penalty be reduced? Evaluating multiple policy interventions
Children cause large earnings drops for mothers but not fathers, a stylized fact known as the "child penalty" that explains a substantial portion of remaining gender income gaps. Can policy reduce the child penalty? We first document how changes in the child penalty over a long time horizon in Norway correlate with major family policy reforms. Next, we evaluate two possible interventions: paternity leave and high-quality childcare. We find no impact of paternity leave on child penalties or a measure of father's preferences for childcare. In contrast, a year of publicly provided childcare reduces child penalties by 23% during the years of use. These results suggest governments can act to reduce child penalties, but providing alternatives to the mother's time, such as quality childcare, is more effective than paternity leave.
- Language
-
Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
-
Series: Discussion Papers ; No. 983
- Classification
-
Wirtschaft
Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
Labor Demand
Time Allocation and Labor Supply
Labor Discrimination
- Subject
-
Gender wage gap
child penalty
paternity leave
childcare
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Andresen, Martin Eckhoff
Nix, Emily
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
-
Statistics Norway, Research Department
- (where)
-
Oslo
- (when)
-
2022
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Andresen, Martin Eckhoff
- Nix, Emily
- Statistics Norway, Research Department
Time of origin
- 2022
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