The Impact of Parenthood on the Gender Wage Gap – a Comparative Analysis of European Countries and Family Policies Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska* Anna Lovasz** April, 2016 Preliminary draft Abstract We use cross-national data to assess how much children and the responsibilities related to them contribute to the gender wage gap, and how family policies affect this relationship. Our analysis is based on a decomposition that reveals what portion of the gender wage gap may be attributed to the existence of: (1) the motherhood wage penalty, (2) the fatherhood wage premium, and (3) the gender wage gap among childless individuals. Our findings suggest that in countries where female employment is low, the gender wage gap is small, and mostly driven by a high positive fatherhood premium. Among the remaining countries, variations are mainly explained by family policies. Countries with high childcare coverage and moderate length paid leaves report small, slightly positive motherhood wage gaps that play a small role in the overall gender gap. On the other hand, the highest motherhood wage penalty is found in countries where long leaves coexist with the low accessibility to childcare facilities, explaining approximately one third of the total gender wage gap. Keywords: Family Gap, Gender Wage Gap, Family Policies JEL codes: J13, J22 The authors would like to thank members of the Virtual Research Collaboration on Gender and Families (Andrea Kiss, Barbara Pertold-Gebicka, Mariann Rigó, Ágnes Szabó-Morvai) for valuable comments. Data was provided by the Data Bank of the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. * University of Warsaw, ecukrowska@wne,.uw.edu.pl ** Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Eotvos Lorand University,
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