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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Theses/Dissertations

Family, Life Course, and Society

Doctoral Dissertations

Motherhood

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Motherhood Wage Penalty Across Life Course And Cohorts, Misun Lim Jul 2019

Motherhood Wage Penalty Across Life Course And Cohorts, Misun Lim

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the connections between changing family structures and economic inequalities in the United States. While previous research shows that motherhood lowers women’s earnings, few studies explore how wage penalties for motherhood change over women’s lives. Moreover, most research examines only the baby boomer cohort; consequentially, little is known about how millennials experience this wage penalty and how such burdens of motherhood have changed across cohorts. This study investigates whether and how the motherhood wage penalty changes both across women’s life course and cohorts with these questions: (1) Does the motherhood penalty change over women’s lives? (2) What are …


The Effects Of Children, Job Changes, And Employment Interruptions On Women’S Wages, Jessica Looze Mar 2015

The Effects Of Children, Job Changes, And Employment Interruptions On Women’S Wages, Jessica Looze

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I build upon the literature examining the motherhood wage penalty. Although previous research has found that much of this penalty can be explained by differences between mothers and childless women in human capital acquisition, job experience, work hours, and unobserved characteristics, these reasons do not fully explain the penalty. The portion of the penalty that remains unexplained is often attributed to some combination of discrimination against women by employers and lower work effort among mothers. In this dissertation, I examine another plausible mechanism: I consider the role that job changes and employment exits play in creating this …